Alumni Spotlight
Herb Chambers ’59 : Hard Work, Ambition and Serendipity. Driven!
Herb Chambers grew up in Dorchester where he and his father, a commercial artist, lived with his grandmother. He says, “We never had a lot of money, but I always had a job from the time I was 13. One of my first was at a Stop & Shop supermarket. I liked working better than school, though I did like math.”
After high school, (English High Class of 1959) Herb enlisted in the Navy where he was trained as an aviation electrician. Following his military stint, while searching for a job he saw an ad for a photocopier repairman. “Fixing things sounded like something I might want to do,” Herb says, “but I really didn’t know what the job entailed. It was the early 1960s and photocopying was a new thing. I thought a copy machine was something to copy photos.”
Although he learned how to repair copiers, he noticed that people selling copiers were making much more money. “I was shy and just 22. To improve my sales technique, I enrolled in a 12-week training course at Dale Carnegie. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
The photocopier business was changing, and Herb saw the opportunity. “Copy machines were just becoming popular and I was in the right place at the right time.” After building A-Copy America into the largest photocopier distributor in the U. S., in 1983 he sold the business to Ikon Office Solutions (now Ricoh) for $80 million.
A year later, he was looking to purchase a Cadillac. He became so disgusted with the experience, he bought the dealership for $1.7 million. And with each dealership he bought during the 1980s, he vowed to improve customer service to sell more cars. His business flourished. Today, Herb owns 60 dealerships, all within 75 miles of Boston. One key to success: He was among the first in the country to offer ‘no-haggle pricing’ and no sales pressure. Following the Golden Rule –treating customers the way he wanted to be treated — has guided Herb’s business philosophy – and helped grow his personal wealth, estimated at $2.5 billion.
Herb believes in the power of positive actions and the ripple effect it has on the community. He says, “That’s why we annually donate millions of dollars to charities and non-profit organizations and encourage our employees to give back through volunteering.” One could say that, today, Herb is known as much for his charity work as for selling cars.
In addition to being a generous supporter of the English High School Association and our students’ academic and career goals; he was a “Success” sponsor for our 200th Gala celebration in October. Herb supports dozens of other worthy causes. He has hosted Boston Marathon parties to raise money for the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and The Jimmy Fund. He supports pediatric care at Mass. General Hospital for Children, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay, the NESN benefit to Strike Out Hunger, Cradles to Crayons, Joslin Diabetes Center, Pine Street Inn. Home for Little Wanderers, and many others. Each year The Herb Chambers Charitable Foundation awards several hundred thousand dollars to dozens of charities.
