In 1910, Henry Ford opened his first automotive factory in the Detroit suburb of Highland Park. Soon after, people living in nearby states flocked to the city, looking for jobs. "Everyone whose car broke down on the way formed the town of Trenton, Ohio, and that's where I'm from," Schmidt quips. The one-traffic-light town is 25 miles from the Ohio-Kentucky border.
Schmidt went to Trenton's only school for 12 consecutive years. Typical activities included rabbit hunting with a shotgun and fishing in streams near the Miami River. "When the mood hit us, we would also sit and watch cars rust, then maybe watch the traffic light for a while," he jokes. "You had to make your own fun."
On their wedding night 30 years ago, Phil and Sue Schmidt opened two Stroh's beers and gift envelopes to see how far they could travel by car for their honeymoon. Today, she's a public-school teacher who helps first-graders recover from reading difficulties. They have three daughters (clockwise, from left): Kendra, 26; Katie, 23; and Alisha, 21.
When he's not making fun of his small-town roots, Schmidt speaks affectionately about his childhood. His grandfather raised lilies, and six plants derived from them grow today in Schmidt's backyard. Schmidt's father (whom he called "Pappy") started a youth baseball league in Trenton after carving a diamond into a cornfield with his 1948 Ford tractor. "Pappy worked hard, but also believed that staying positive was most important," Schmidt says. "One of his favorite sayings was, 'If worrying could solve a problem, I'd be a big-time worrier.' I firmly believe that worrying is a wasted exercise."
In 1965, Schmidt began his freshman year at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich. Friends called him "Philbilly" because of his rural accent. During his first weekend at college, he met Rudy Taylor, who quickly became his best friend. During their junior year, Schmidt was voted treasurer of the school's Delta Chi fraternity, and Taylor was its social chairman. "That wasn't exactly healthy," Schmidt recalls. "If Rudy said we needed two kegs for a party, I'd tell him we had enough money for four."
After graduating in 1969 with a degree in business administration, Schmidt worked briefly as a history teacher in inner-city Detroit, then at a printing distributorship before launching his own company in 1971.
On June 30, 1973, entranced by Sue's "warm heart, sharp mind and knockout body," he says, the couple married in a ceremony they paid for themselves. On their wedding night, they opened two Stroh's beers and gift envelopes to see how far they could travel by car for their honeymoon. They visited Toronto and Montreal before heading back to the apartment they rented. "We've never needed much in our relationship besides each other," Schmidt says.
As Advanced Systems & Forms grew, Schmidt made a self-promise to always put family ahead of forms. "We depend on each other at the company, and obviously work matters," Schmidt says. "But when it comes down to it, work is just a way to support my fun habit." He says he enjoys living 38 miles from the office because it gives him time to curtail work stress before arriving at home.
Schmidt has spent a significant portion of his adult life "dealing with estrogen," he says, but he enjoys talking at length about his daughters' virtues. Kendra, 26, graduated from Ohio University, lives near Dayton, Ohio, and works as a successful salesperson for a pharmaceutical company. Katie, 23, graduated from Montana State University, works as a landscape contractor in Bozeman, Mont., and is an avid skier. Alisha, 21, is a special-education major at Ohio University and shares her father's dry wit.
"Dad always has been very involved in our lives," Kendra says. When she was 14, he volunteered to carpool her and neighborhood friends to junior high school on Wednesdays. "It was absolutely horrible," she recalls. "Picture a couple of teenage girls, a couple of teenage guys, and my smiling dad in the driver's seat, going, 'Hello, everyone! It's another Wacky Wednesday!' I wanted to leave the car as fast as I could."
In 1992, Phil Schmidt and his three daughters, and Rudy Taylor and his two daughters, took the first of many father/daughter camping vacations together. "People thought we were nuts, taking a group of five girls aged 9 to 15 into the woods for four nights," Phil Schmidt says. "They were right, but we had a blast." Twice in the past five years, he and Taylor have taken their daughters to Las Vegas to celebrate 21st birthdays. Before the more recent trip, in March, he sent Alisha a book on how to play blackjack and craps.
"Phil's a good businessman, but he's an even better family man," says James R. Griffith, CDC, president of Continuous Forms Inc., a manufacturer in Redford, Mich., and DMIA's 1987-88 manufacturer vice president. Their companies work together on printing jobs and have co-sponsored needy families during Salvation Army charity drives. "Phil is a person who gives before he gets," Griffith says.
Every summer, Schmidt, Mellen and five of their friends drive to Hawk Junction, Ontario, and board a plane with enough food, clothes and testosterone to last a week. The only way to access their rental cabin is to use a chartered seaplane that flies for 35 minutes over pine trees, lakes and the occasional moose. It's literally 100 miles from civilization. Each cabin comes with dishes, three propane lanterns, running water and little else. Mellen brings a boom box, a few others bring decks of cards and for 20 consecutive years, no one has left the beer in the seaplane.
The seven friends do leave a spot open for their late friend, Tim "T.J." McCann. He contracted Hodgkin's disease when he was 22 years old and fought it off with chemotherapy. Schmidt was best man in McCann's wedding and vice versa. Later, though, McCann learned he had heart and liver damage from the high levels of radiation he had endured. "I remember seeing him for the first time with a breathing apparatus, and he couldn't talk," Schmidt says, fighting back emotion. "He wanted to say something, but couldn't. And he wanted to write something, but shook. He was a special human being."
One time, McCann and a friend named Rocco Romano were fishing for walleye and listening to a U2 cassette tape. Unwittingly, one of them pressed "Record" on a portable stereo, dubbing their conversation over the tape. "All of the sudden, Bono stops singing, and Rocco is talking about lures and how his line's being pulled away," Mellen says, laughing. "Rocco asks for help pulling up a pike, and McCann starts bitching and screaming about how much he hates pike."
When the fishing buddies met the summer after McCann's death, they dubbed the event the T.J. McCann Memorial Fishing Trip. They wore silkscreened T-shirts with an image of McCann playing an air guitar on the front. The words "I Hate These $#%!@^! Pike!" appeared on the back. "We don't have T.J. anymore," Schmidt says, "but it's always great to hear him on tape."
"This woman does not look like she's
53," Schmidt says while pointing at his wife. He cuts a piece of carrot cake for
her and says, "Happy birthday, sweetie!" The kitchen table is littered with
birthday cards and crumbs.
Sue Schmidt says she appreciates her
husband's cooking, though lately she would prefer one or two more settings
at the table. "The empty nest thing takes some getting used to," she had said earlier. "I think Phil is adjusting a little better than me. I miss all three of them a lot, but luckily we have close relationships and talk on the phone."
Sue Schmidt samples her carrot cake, and her husband goes to his music-listening lair. He returns with the DVD version of The Last Waltz by music group The Band and begins to explain its cultural significance.
"Oh, boy," Sue Schmidt says.
From 1968 to 1975, The Band was one of the most popular rock groups in the world. It had a collective sound, but combined five distinct voices and a mix of folk, blues, gospel, rhythm and blues, classical, and rock 'n' roll. The Band held a 4-hour, farewell concert in San Francisco on Thanksgiving 1976, with legends such as Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton. In 1978, film director Martin Scorsese mixed footage from the concert with interviews from band members and assorted guests. And that's what Phil Schmidt has in his hands.
He turns up the volume, grins and says, "It doesn't get any better than this. We have cool music, great steak and a little wine. OK, a few bottles of wine. This life is one cool gig." She points out that life might be even cooler if he turned the volume down.
"You know what?" he says to her a few minutes later. "Having a wife like you is better than sitting in an easy chair with a cold beer in one hand and a remote control in the other while watching my favorite team win a championship game on a big-screen TV while my buddies and I belch and break wind at will."
They both start laughing loudly.
"I think you've gone crazy," she says, shaking her head. "But in a good way, Phil, in a good way."
He skips to the final song of The Last Waltz--one of his favorite parts--and begins to sing with The Band's bass guitarist, Rick Danko: "She stands on the banks of the mighty Mississippi, holding a lantern light. He's waitin' for a man who's a riverboat gambler. He said he'd return tonight."
Earlier, when Phil Schmidt spoke in his office about how Pappy carved a baseball diamond into a cornfield with his tractor and advised him never to worry, he closed his eyes. Now, he does the same thing as Robbie Robertson, The Band's songwriter and lead guitarist, and Richard Manuel, its pianist and backup vocalist, sing.
Phil Schmidt stops singing and watches the screen intently. "The last waltz, the last waltz, the last waltz was through," he hears. "But that don't really mean that the party's over."
Darin Painter is managing editor of Print Solutions. Email him your comments at dpainter@PSDA.org. John F. Martin is a freelance photographer in Grosse Pointe, Mich.
