AFTER DELTONA
AVANTI PRODUCTS
The sale of the Key Biscayne Hotel put considerable cash into The Mackle Company.
During the 1980s - both before and after we left Deltona - Dad began to invest that money in various ways.
In 1980 he recruited Bill Quarles from Price Waterhouse to assist in that effort.
Soon several acquisitions were made.
In 1981 Avanti Products, a distributor of appliances, was acquired for $200,000. Al Cortina, founder of Avanti, would remain as President. Richard Ladd - also from Price Waterhouse had been hired in late 1981 to assist Bill Quarles. Soon after the acquisition Richard was re-assigned to assist Al Cortina.
In the early 1980s Honda of Clearwater - a Honda franchise for motorcycles and other small Honda products - was acquired.
Around 1985 Third Century Tours a wholesale travel agency was acquired.
In 1988 - two years after leaving Deltona - Dad and I started back in the building and development business with a small project in Vero Beach and - a year or two later - another one in Lake Placid, Florida.
Additional funds were invested in stocks and mutual funds.
The Mackle Company offices - after leaving Deltona - were relocated briefly to a building near Miami International Airport. Dad soon tired of those arrangements and in the early 1990s relocated to new "Mackle Built" offices on 3rd Avenue - the same road where his offices had been located since 1939.
As he had done all of his life, Dad was still willing to take risks. He took the good with the bad.
The Honda franchise was closed in 1999. Local competition had proven too much and the venture was liquidated.
Third Century Tours was shut down after improprieties were found in the operations.
And in the early nineties the two real estate ventures were shut down. A combination of the 1990 - 1991 recession and the growing success of Avanti Products contributed to that decision.
Avanti would be last business triumph of Dad's remarkable career.
By 1992, a year before Dad's death, we had committed most of the resources of the Mackle company to the Avanti operation.
After Dad's passing I relocated Mackle Company operations to Avanti west of the airport and in 1999 Avanti became the sole operating entity of the company. In the same year Al Cortina retired and Richard Ladd was named President.
Today Avanti is the largest independent distributor of compact refrigerators in the U.S.
The company purchases appliance products made in China, Korea and Turkey. Avanti sells to retailers primarily in the U.S. but also in the Carribean and Latin America. Retailers supplied by Avanti include WalMart, K-Mart, Brandsmart and over three hundred others.
Warehouses in Miami, Florida, Long Beach, California, Chicago, Illinois and Jersey City, New Jersey receive product shipped from manufacturers and deliver - by semi-trailer - to retailers all over the country. From Miami product is sent by ship to Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and Latin America.
Key Executives are Richard Ladd, Juan Aroix, Bill Quarles and Mike Flynn.
Since 1999 we have expanded and diversified from refrigerators into other rapidly growing lines including wine coolers, water dispensers, range ovens and laundry products.
Avanti has grown from $10,000,000 million in revenue in 1982 to over $60,000,000 million in 2001.
Avanti's Miami Headquarters
Avanti's Appliance Products
HIS PASSING
As a result of continuing heart problems Dad became more and more frail in the last few years of his life.
On July 29, 1993 - a week after his 77th birthday - he passed away peacefully at his home on Key Biscayne with his wife his son and his daughter by his side.
I am happy to say that each of his eight grandchildren knew him.
CONCLUSION
The wonderful thing about the Community Development business is that - no matter what the course that companies may take ...profit ...loss ...success ...failure - what is created will last for a long, long time.
Even the largest building will fall someday - or be torn down.
A community has a life of its own.
It is a living breathing thing - made up of its people .... its families.
It goes where they want to take it.
But the Community Builder lays the foundation.
The Mackle family has laid the foundation of fifteen Florida communities....
................so far!
Mackle-Built Communities
from
Key Biscayne (1950) to Tampa Palms (1985)
One final note, in December 1999, the Miami Herald's Business Monday featured the all-time "Fifty People Who Changed South Florida Business."
The Mackle Brothers - Frank, Elliott and Robert - were there .... along with Henry Flagler, Eddie Rickenbacker, Carl Fischer, Wayne Huzenga and others.
For myself .....Dad ranked much higher.
I loved him very much.
I hope you do too.
