Stanley Dashew
Encyclopedia
Stanley Aaron Dashew is an American entrepreneur, inventor, philanthropist, and sailor who developed many devices in diverse industries, but remains best known as one of the forefathers and founders of the plastic credit card industry during the 1950s. Working alongside Joseph P. Williams
, then Vice President of Bank of America
and who handled the financial banking systems side, he made revolutionary contributions to accessible credit with his innovations on the mechanical and hardware end, especially with the Databosser. Authorities and publications in automated data credit his new designs for the embossing machine as the first to integrate IBM
punch cards with embossers that automatically generated variable alphanumeric data pressed into new materials (first aluminum alloy, then plastic). The concept of portable variable data soon ushered in the current credit card economy.
During the course of his manufacturing career, Dashew has been issued fourteen U.S. patents for his inventions and mechanisms, and has also been responsible for the creation of more than fifty other patents assigned to his many companies. He has created mechanical systems in the business data, banking, shipping, mining, transportation, marine recreation, water purification, and medical-health industries. These included the Databosser and Datawriter under Dashew Business Machines, the single point mooring buoy in Imodco (SBM Offshore
), the Dashaveyor
mining cars and people transport for the Dashaveyor
Company, a ship bow thruster
under the Omnithruster Company, liquid aeration and oxygenation treatments through Omniphaser, wastewater purification system for Biomixer, Inc., and personal spinal decompression mobility devices under the title Dashaway—the latter developed and marketed under his oversight, while in his nineties, from 2005 to 2010.
In January of 2011, Dashew released his first book—an inspirational memoir in a business paperback trade edition, entitled You Can Do It! Inspiration and Lessons from an Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Sailor (published by Constellation Press). The book was written over a ten-year period with co-author and executive coach Josef S. Klus. The biography was released in seven different e-book digital reader formats; talks have begun for translation into Mandarin for the Chinese market.
Dashew's mother and father emigrated from Russia and Lithuania, respectively, during the pogroms and poverty caused by the Cossack
uprising that eventually led to the Bolshevik or Red Revolution.
Dashew was the middle child of the family, born in the Harlem
district in New York City
. He spent most of his childhood on a sixty-five-acre agricultural property his parents owned in Pomona, New York
, with his two sisters. The Dashew family ran their homestead as a summer resort—first for family and friends, and later year-round for vacationers and residents. Dashew's first foray into business at age eight was a soda pop bottle redemption service, and his first endeavor at direct customer sales came at age twelve (door-to-door bushels of peaches). By age fifteen, he had also become a Hires Root Beer reseller and sold at a roadway stand with the family’s produce and fruit. During his teenage and high school years, at the height of The Great Depression, he also helped manage his family’s properties; he secured the first business bank loan for the family enterprise, by himself.
-Multigraph, makers of business addressing machinery, the first task Dashew set himself to was to change his business cards to read "Special Representative" because he disliked the reputation of "Sales". Although Dashew had a distaste for selling product, he excelled at designing systems that helped customers find solutions for their business challenges, which employed his company’s products. Within two years, he had made it into the top sales bracket Hundred Club as a lifetime member—the only employee or agency manager, and youngest, to maintain the standing for ten consecutive years. He never had the opportunity to transfer to the Advertising Department. In 1942, he took a promotion from Addressograph-Multigraph to move to Grand Rapids, Michigan
where he established a successful business machines sales agency.
Shortly after marrying Martha Grossman in March 1938, Dashew took an interest in sailboat ownership and cruising. At the same time, from the late 1940s to early 1950s, he started writing short magazine articles about the sailor’s skills and travels, published in magazines such as Outdoor Life
and Motor Boating & Sailing. In 1949, he and his wife, Martha, outfitted a 76-foot schooner
, Constellation, and set sail with his young family. They sailed from the Great Lakes
, up the St. Lawrence Seaway, down the East Coast, through the Caribbean and West Indies, though the Panama Canal
, and up the Mexican Pacific to finally arrive and settle in Los Angeles, California. Their voyage was notable--making headlines across the Americas--because of its duration, the tall-ship’s masts and sails, their visit to a Haitian voodoo ceremony, and the fact that crew included their seven-year old son, Skip (Stephen), and their three-month old baby daughter, Leslie.
bought DBM in 1963.
Dashew's work with Bank of America
led to the creation of the BankAmericard, the first plastic bank credit card system. Diners Club
and other bank and credit card programs quickly followed. His further work with Joe Williams, retired from Bank of America, led to the introduction of Uni-card (taken over from Chase Manhattan Bank), which was later renamed VISA
. To pitch his company’s unique position to American Express
to emboss more variable data faster than his competitors, he printed the name of each board executive on each man’s sample card, along with a date and the catchphrase he created, “Member Since…”
Dashew then took the helm of a fledgling Swedish enterprise and facilitated the worldwide introduction of single-point mooring systems for offshore oil production developed through the IMODCO Company. The Dashaveyor Company, a people-mover system builder, gained many worldwide patents under Dashew’s direction, as did Omnithruster Company, maker of a bow-thruster system to help maneuver ships and military vessels. Other start-up companies followed, including most recently the Dashaway Company, a personal mobility and exercise device for elderly, spinal surgery, Parkinson's disease
sufferers (like himself), and other patients.
In 2000, Chancellor Albert Carnesale
presented Dashew the UCLA Medal, the university's highest honor. Dashew dedicated the medal to the student volunteers, the community volunteers, and the Board of Directors at the center.
Joseph P. Williams
Joseph P. Williams was the creator of the BankAmericard, the first nationwide bank credit card, which later evolved into the VISA brand....
, then Vice President of Bank of America
Bank of America
Bank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...
and who handled the financial banking systems side, he made revolutionary contributions to accessible credit with his innovations on the mechanical and hardware end, especially with the Databosser. Authorities and publications in automated data credit his new designs for the embossing machine as the first to integrate IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
punch cards with embossers that automatically generated variable alphanumeric data pressed into new materials (first aluminum alloy, then plastic). The concept of portable variable data soon ushered in the current credit card economy.
During the course of his manufacturing career, Dashew has been issued fourteen U.S. patents for his inventions and mechanisms, and has also been responsible for the creation of more than fifty other patents assigned to his many companies. He has created mechanical systems in the business data, banking, shipping, mining, transportation, marine recreation, water purification, and medical-health industries. These included the Databosser and Datawriter under Dashew Business Machines, the single point mooring buoy in Imodco (SBM Offshore
SBM Offshore
SBM Offshore N.V. is a Dutch-based global group of companies selling systems and services to the offshore oil and gas industry. Its constituent companies started their offshore activities in the early 1950s and SBM subsequently became a pioneer in single point mooring systems...
), the Dashaveyor
Dashaveyor
The Dashaveyor was an automated guideway transit system developed during the 1960s and '70s.Originally developed by the Dashaveyor Company for moving cargo, the system used motorized palettes that could be routed on the fly to any destination in an extended network...
mining cars and people transport for the Dashaveyor
Dashaveyor
The Dashaveyor was an automated guideway transit system developed during the 1960s and '70s.Originally developed by the Dashaveyor Company for moving cargo, the system used motorized palettes that could be routed on the fly to any destination in an extended network...
Company, a ship bow thruster
Bow thruster
A bow thruster is a transversal propulsion device built into, or mounted to, the bow of a ship or boat to make it more maneuverable. Bow thrusters make docking easier, since they allow the captain to turn the vessel to port or starboard without using the main propulsion mechanism which requires...
under the Omnithruster Company, liquid aeration and oxygenation treatments through Omniphaser, wastewater purification system for Biomixer, Inc., and personal spinal decompression mobility devices under the title Dashaway—the latter developed and marketed under his oversight, while in his nineties, from 2005 to 2010.
In January of 2011, Dashew released his first book—an inspirational memoir in a business paperback trade edition, entitled You Can Do It! Inspiration and Lessons from an Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Sailor (published by Constellation Press). The book was written over a ten-year period with co-author and executive coach Josef S. Klus. The biography was released in seven different e-book digital reader formats; talks have begun for translation into Mandarin for the Chinese market.
Early life
Stanley Dashew's parents Esther (Turits) and Leon Dashew, circa 1900 after emigration from Russia to America, at time of marriage.Dashew's mother and father emigrated from Russia and Lithuania, respectively, during the pogroms and poverty caused by the Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
uprising that eventually led to the Bolshevik or Red Revolution.
Dashew was the middle child of the family, born in the Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
district in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He spent most of his childhood on a sixty-five-acre agricultural property his parents owned in Pomona, New York
Pomona, New York
Pomona is a village partly in the Town of Ramapo and partly in the Town of Haverstraw in Rockland County, New York, United States, located north of New Hempstead, east of Harriman State Park, north of Monsey and west of Mount Ivy. According to the 2010 Census, the population was 3,103, a 13 percent...
, with his two sisters. The Dashew family ran their homestead as a summer resort—first for family and friends, and later year-round for vacationers and residents. Dashew's first foray into business at age eight was a soda pop bottle redemption service, and his first endeavor at direct customer sales came at age twelve (door-to-door bushels of peaches). By age fifteen, he had also become a Hires Root Beer reseller and sold at a roadway stand with the family’s produce and fruit. During his teenage and high school years, at the height of The Great Depression, he also helped manage his family’s properties; he secured the first business bank loan for the family enterprise, by himself.
Early career
Dashew did not feel he had the mathematic and mechanical aptitude required for architecture or engineering. Instead, he steered himself toward law, by working part-time in his father’s office. However, he eventually became disenchanted with the law and thrust himself into pursuit of a writing career by moving to New York City, where he lived for a short time with his grandmother and paternal aunts. He accepted a position as a sales representative after exaggerating his age on the job application. In his initial career position with AddressographAddressograph
An addressograph is an address labeler and labeling system.In 1896, the first U.S. patent for an addressing machine, the Addressograph was issued to Joseph Smith Duncan of Sioux City, Iowa. It was a development of the invention he had made in 1892. His earlier model consisted of a hexagonal wood...
-Multigraph, makers of business addressing machinery, the first task Dashew set himself to was to change his business cards to read "Special Representative" because he disliked the reputation of "Sales". Although Dashew had a distaste for selling product, he excelled at designing systems that helped customers find solutions for their business challenges, which employed his company’s products. Within two years, he had made it into the top sales bracket Hundred Club as a lifetime member—the only employee or agency manager, and youngest, to maintain the standing for ten consecutive years. He never had the opportunity to transfer to the Advertising Department. In 1942, he took a promotion from Addressograph-Multigraph to move to Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...
where he established a successful business machines sales agency.
Shortly after marrying Martha Grossman in March 1938, Dashew took an interest in sailboat ownership and cruising. At the same time, from the late 1940s to early 1950s, he started writing short magazine articles about the sailor’s skills and travels, published in magazines such as Outdoor Life
Outdoor Life
Outdoor Life is an outdoors magazine about hunting, fishing, survival and camping. It is a sister magazine of Field & Stream. Together with Sports Afield, they are considered the Big Three of American outdoor publishing. Outdoor Life launched in Denver, Colorado in January 1898. Founder and...
and Motor Boating & Sailing. In 1949, he and his wife, Martha, outfitted a 76-foot schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
, Constellation, and set sail with his young family. They sailed from the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
, up the St. Lawrence Seaway, down the East Coast, through the Caribbean and West Indies, though the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
, and up the Mexican Pacific to finally arrive and settle in Los Angeles, California. Their voyage was notable--making headlines across the Americas--because of its duration, the tall-ship’s masts and sails, their visit to a Haitian voodoo ceremony, and the fact that crew included their seven-year old son, Skip (Stephen), and their three-month old baby daughter, Leslie.
Return to business
Rather than return to his old company as a field agency head or central office manager when he returned from sailing, Dashew formed his own business machines company in Los Angeles, California. He started by importing calculators and moved into data automation, hoping to eventually to compete with his former employer. Dashew Business Machines produced a variety of machines that embossed identification tags for the military and other industrial uses, including imprinters, which, when combined with the unique embossing machines, formed the foundation for today's credit card industry. Hughes Tool CompanyHughes Tool Company
Hughes Tool Company was established in 1908 as Sharp-Hughes Tool Company when Howard R. Hughes, Sr. patented a roller cutter bit that dramatically improved the rotary drilling process for oil drilling rigs. He partnered with longtime business associate Walter Benona Sharp to manufacture and market...
bought DBM in 1963.
Dashew's work with Bank of America
Bank of America
Bank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...
led to the creation of the BankAmericard, the first plastic bank credit card system. Diners Club
Diners Club
Diners Club International, founded as Diners Club, is a charge card company formed in 1950 by Frank X. McNamara, Ralph Schneider and Matty Simmons...
and other bank and credit card programs quickly followed. His further work with Joe Williams, retired from Bank of America, led to the introduction of Uni-card (taken over from Chase Manhattan Bank), which was later renamed VISA
Visa
Visa or VISA may refer to:* Visa , a document issued by a country's government allowing the holder to enter or to leave that country...
. To pitch his company’s unique position to American Express
American Express
American Express Company or AmEx, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is best...
to emboss more variable data faster than his competitors, he printed the name of each board executive on each man’s sample card, along with a date and the catchphrase he created, “Member Since…”
Dashew then took the helm of a fledgling Swedish enterprise and facilitated the worldwide introduction of single-point mooring systems for offshore oil production developed through the IMODCO Company. The Dashaveyor Company, a people-mover system builder, gained many worldwide patents under Dashew’s direction, as did Omnithruster Company, maker of a bow-thruster system to help maneuver ships and military vessels. Other start-up companies followed, including most recently the Dashaway Company, a personal mobility and exercise device for elderly, spinal surgery, Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
sufferers (like himself), and other patients.
Philanthropy
During the 1970s, Dashew with the support of his second wife, Rita, initiated and conceived the plan to build the UCLA International Student Center that bears their name.In 2000, Chancellor Albert Carnesale
Albert Carnesale
Albert Carnesale is an American academic. He is a former chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles, provost of Harvard University, and dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. In November 1994, while serving as Dean and Provost, Carnesale also served as Acting President...
presented Dashew the UCLA Medal, the university's highest honor. Dashew dedicated the medal to the student volunteers, the community volunteers, and the Board of Directors at the center.