Obituary of Roger Elliott Allen

Roger was born to Esther Jane Allen (nee Adams) on December 3rd, 1925. It was not clear whether, or for how long, Roger Senior was present and in the picture, as Junior had no memory of him during his childhood. His mother, and his maternal grandmother in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania raised Roger. Shortly before the Great Depression, Esther found a job with the State government that allowed her some measure of income and security. Esther and her mother rented a large house on Front Street, and took in boarders to make ends meet. They carefully selected tenants that were young, married (but not living with their families) and that had jobs (so they could pay the rent). It is in this Boarding house atmosphere that my father grew up, and that comprised much of his early memories. In a way, he may not have had a father, but he had a mother, a grandmother, and twelve or fifteen uncles. They were reasonably well off, even during the depression, and kept a summer home, named Perdix, located north and west of the city on the banks of the Susquehanna river. It was here, no doubt, that my father’s imagination was nurtured, playing along the river, and on the islands therein, and acting out all of the characters he was reading about in his beloved books. His love of books started early and ran to all different genres, although the adventure and fantasy areas held special prominence (think Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Louis Stevenson, Melville and on and on). He also became a fan of the ‘Pulp’ magazines that were popular during his youth, and never lost his love for The Shadow, Operator Number 5, and Doc Savage. After graduating High School, Roger entered into the V12 Program (This was a government program to train and cultivate officers for the various branches of the service for the Second World War) and attended Cornell University. His schooling was split into two parts on either side of his service as an ensign in the U. S. Navy, and he returned to Cornell to complete his schooling and receive a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. He took a position with Procter & Gamble and also worked with Mohawk Carpet Mills. Transferred to Cincinnati, Ohio, he met Marilyn Geiselman at a Church dance. She was studying piano at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and sold sheet music to the other students to help pay her way through school. They began seeing each other regularly, and then were married on September 16, 1950. They had three sons, Mark, born in Cincinnati, Steve who was born when the family moved to Amsterdam, New York, and then the youngest, Jeff, who was born in York, Pennsylvania. By this time, Roger had taken an Executive position with New York Wire, a firm that manufactured wire window screening. In 1960, the firm chose Roger to move West and start a factory on the West Coast, so the young family moved to Los Angeles, settling in Torrance, and then in Palos Verdes. During this time, Roger set up and managed the Pacific Wire Company as a division of New York Wire. Roger and Marilyn purchased a fourteen foot day-sailing sloop, Omega class, and taught all three boys the rudiments of sailing while they sailed and raced out of the King Harbor Yacht club in Redondo Beach. It was also around this time that Roger donated his time and expertise to the Green Power Foundation, an organization that created the Watts Walloper, a baseball bat that was made by inner city labor and utilized a different manufacturing process to create a superior product. In the late Seventies, Roger began giving a series of lectures on management at Loyola Marymount College. It was while preparing for these lectures that he was casting about for some ‘warm and fuzzy’ way of presenting the dry and calculating topics of business and management. He remembered the Winnie-the-Pooh books he had read when he was a child, and decided that Winnie was just the character he needed to help with his lectures. So he began carrying a Winnie-the-Pooh teddy bear with him to his lectures. Invariably, someone at the lecture would ask him why he was carrying about the stuffed animal, and he would respond by telling the Pooh stories as object lesson for good management and business skills. When the lecture series ended, he carried on the idea, and created a manuscript called ‘Pooh on Management,’ and sent it off to a half dozen publishing houses. He received a half dozen rejection notices, and placed the manuscript lovingly in the closet to gather dust (more on this later). Roger and Marilyn moved from Southern California to Montecito (near Santa Barbara) after Roger’s retirement from Pacific Wire. He started his own consulting firm, Allen Associates, and did management consulting with private and public sector organizations for many years. His firm was cited favorably in the United States Congress during their hearing on productivity improvement, and received awards from the American Society of Public Administrators and the American Public Welfare Association. It was also the subject of articles in Fortune magazine, and the Quarterly journal of the National Center for Public Productivity. Roger and Marilyn moved from Santa Barbara to Tacoma, Washington in 1990 to be near their sons. Roger’s son Steve, who was acting as a literary agent and trying to get a business associates’ work published, rescued the Winnie-the-Pooh manuscript from the closet (different closet, . . . they had moved, . . . but no less dusty). He did some research on who might be able to publish such a work (because of the copyright and trademark issues with the Pooh characters and stories), and sent off a copy to the Publisher who represented the Milne estate in the United States. Penguin made an offer shortly thereafter. ‘Winnie-the-Pooh on Management’ was released in 1994 with an initial printing of 100,000 copies, and a nationwide book tour. Roger appeared on Good Morning America with Charlie Gibson, and learned the most important lesson in book promotion, . . . hold up the book and show the cover!, . . . which was done three times. Learning quickly about the publishing industry, Roger, with Steve’s help as agent and coauthor, had completed and sold a sequel before the first book was released. Winnie-the-Pooh on Problem Solving came out the next year. And the third book in the series, Winnie-the-Pooh on Success was released one year after that. All of the books were non-fiction Business bestsellers. Altogether, the books have been translated into 20 languages, and well over a third of a million copies in print. All with the help of a son, a penguin and a certain bear, . . . Roger’s lifelong love of books, and his having become a best selling author, was always a source of great pride and joy for him. Roger and Marilyn settled into retired life in Tacoma, and loved the area, its libraries and their beautiful home overlooking Commencement Bay. They amassed a personal library of over 15,000 volumes, and their home served as a focal point for the family’s Holiday and social gatherings. Roger lost Marilyn in 2006 to cancer, and shortly thereafter moved to an independent living facility overlooking the Puget Sound Narrows bridge. In March of 2008, he moved again, this time to a new Independent/assisted living facility, Merill Gardens, which became a new ‘home’ to him, and allowed him to be closer to Family. The traits that served him throughout his life, his curiosity, his insatiable desire for knowledge, his gregarious and outgoing nature, as well as his love of reflective personal space were all apparent during his last days. He was proud of his three boys, and the men they had become, and expressed admiration for each of their abilities to succeed in what had become a complex and uncertain world. He loved and cherished his larger family no less, and treated each visit and call with great attention. He leaves behind his eldest son, Mark and wife Jody, grandson Matthew, and granddaughter Scottie; his son Steve and wife Stasia, grandson Chris and grandson Thomas; and his son Jeff and wife Shirley, grandson Bryce, grandson Colter and grandson Keanan.