The Beginnings of Spader Business Management
Duane Spader grew up on a farm in Oldham, South Dakota, the 10th of 16 children. Duane"s father earned some retirement income by selling campers from the family farm. Duane started by selling mobile homes in Brookings, South Dakota. The local banker was more friendly towards RVs, so Duane switched to selling pickup campers and tent campers, which didn"t compete with the RVs sold by his father. But soon Duane took over for his father selling campers from the farm.
Duane was the first boy in his family to attend high school – the boys were expected to work on the farm, not go to high school. Duane worked and went to school at the same time, and graduated from Howard High School in Howard, South Dakota. He was the first child in his family to attend college, and was married to Elaine Reisch by age 20.
Duane and Elaine decided to take the $1,000 they had saved for Duane"s final year of college at South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota and invested it in an RV dealership instead. This was a very difficult decision because Duane had worked so hard to get to college. He had mentors and investors interested in helping him in this fledgling business, and a college professor told him he could always come back and finish his education, but he might only get one chance for a good start in business.
Duane"s mentors were mainly located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the largest city in the state. They advised him to move the dealership from Brookings to Sioux Falls to gain access to the larger market there. The original facility was a single humble building, but today is a thriving RV dealership managed by Duane"s second son, Tony Spader.
One of the aspirations Duane and his investors had for this RV dealership was to create a franchise-like system that could be applied to a chain of dealerships. In addition to managing his dealership on a daily basis, Duane worked over several years developing a top-to-bottom system for easily managing the dealership. His intention was to create a total management system that could be executed by anyone. He liked to say that when his total management system was complete, he could take "an average person off the street and make them an above-average manager."
Duane hired Noel Lais, who went on to become a CPA, as bookkeeper for the dealership during this time. Noel worked alongside Duane to develop the "economic equation" that is still a cornerstone of the Spader business management principles featured in today"s Total Management 1 workshop.
Duane, a life-long learner, was also very interested in the "human equation" of the business. He sought out teachers and learning that could help him create systems for managing the people side of the business as effectively as what he and Noel were creating for the financial side. He attended the second session ever presented by Dr. Geier, who pioneered the DISC personal style model. As he continued his studies into this powerful aspect of the human equation, Duane met Dr. Michael O"Connor, who later became vice president of development at Carlson Companies in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Carlson purchased the rights to the DISC personal profiles from Dr. Geier. Duane and Dr. O"Connor began a friendship and a business relationship that has continued and expanded over the last thirty years.
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