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HARVEY "CHET" KRENTZMAN CREATES LEGACIES THROUGH STRATEGIC NETWORKING The phone rings in Harvey "Chet" Krentzman's home office and he picks it up directly—he is his own assistant. Papers, notebooks and manila files stock the light wood built-in bookshelves along the wall next to him. His desk is awash with more papers; a desk lamp and small clock barely peek through. And he's in the middle of an interview. But when the phone rings, the 78-year-old management consultant, entrepreneur, philanthropist and author seizes the opportunity each call may present.
Without a computer or a secretary, Krentzman relies on his incredibly sharp memory and strong sense of organization to retrieve information—however remote—at a moment's notice. He is a man with a plan. His bookshelves-turned-filing-cabinets are organized by strategically placed yellow sticky notes, and each phone call and file fits into a creative and mindful system. From guiding the success of fast-growing companies to giving philanthropic gifts and coordinating family events, Krentzman places a premium on strategies and social dynamics. Since the 1960s, as founder and president of Advanced Management Associates, he has consulted to countless organizations and individuals with the philosophy of being a long-time "family" member and adviser. He also founded SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) and published Managing for Profits for the United States Small Business Administration. Along the way, he has turned more than 200 people into millionaires. From his penthouse apartment in Chestnut Hill, Mass., which he shares with his wife, Farla, a community leader in her own right, Krentzman says the success of his involvement with Hebrew College, the Boston Symphony, Northeastern University, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Congregation Mishkan Tefila, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Norman Rockwell Museum, the American College of Greece in Athens, the USS Constitution, other philanthropic organizations and numerous businesses in Boston and beyond, can be attributed to three things: sharing knowledge and experience, focus, and matching skills with needs. SHARING KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE A Hebrew College adviser, Krentzman has shown his commitment to the College through numerous involvements and a close relationship with President David Gordis. In 1999, through a planned gift in the form of a charitable remainder trust, he and Farla joined Charlotte and Lou Kaitz in naming the Kaitz-Krentzman Lobby at the entrance to the Gann Library. Longtime members of the President's Circle, the Krentzmans also chaired the very successful Lown Dinner in 1999, when the Kaitzes were honored. Last September, the Krentzmans hosted a celebration in honor of Gordis's tenth year as Hebrew College president. Krentzman says he greatly admires Gordis and considers him "one of our country's great Jewish scholars and leaders." "I see the excitement of creating the new campus and broadening the College's programs as the ingredients for success," Krentzman says. Krentzman's younger son, Scott, of whom he says he is "very proud," is a current Hebrew College overseer and a member of the Advisory Board of Hebrew College Online. The Krentzman family's energy and carefully planned generosity also extend to other select educational and cultural institutions—including Chet's alma mater, Northeastern University. In 1959, Chet founded, chaired and taught in Northeastern's Small Business Institute, which was the largest small business owner-manager program in the country and ran for 17 years. Formerly chair of the $186 million Century Fund Drive, he served as vice chairman of Northeastern's Board of Trustees for more than 12 years and is now Vice Chairman Emeritus. FOCUS The key to his successful turnarounds, he says, is an unwavering vision and focus. To cite just one example, he references the creation of the Presidents at Pops program for the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in 1981. Culling from the large network of contacts he generated during years of consulting and through the Small Business Institute at Northeastern, he convinced the BSO to give his proposal a try: As chairman of the new BSO Corporate Development Committee, he would extend personal invitations to executives of small and mid-sized Boston businesses, their spouses and friends, offering to make Presidents at Pops the leading social corporate event in the city. The object for the evening was for "husbands and wives to meet other couples during an elegant evening of dinner and dancing at the symphony, and for business people to broaden their corporate networks," says Krentzman. Each invitation also included 20 seats to a special Presidents at the Pops concert, and the proceeds ($3,000 an invitation) went to the BSO. Scheduled for June 1982, it was sold out by May. The same event the following year was sold out by Thanksgiving. Shortly following the huge success of the first Presidents at Pops, Krentzman approached the BSO with another idea—Christmas at the Pops. Though it took some convincing, the BSO agreed. One of the many lessons Krentzman has learned from his years of consulting is that you have to keep proving your abilities one success at a time. As he told the Boston Business Journal in 1993, "If you really think you can provide a service to a company, go out and do it. . . . Once you've done it a second time, then do it a third time and they'll drop dead." What's a Jewish businessman doing planning a Christmas event? "It was done in good taste and kept with the mood of the holiday season," he says. In their 23-year history, Presidents at Pops and Christmas at the Pops, along with the annual fund Krentzman helped cultivate along the way, have raised $40–50 million for the BSO. The annual drive has likewise gone from $75,000 a year in 1982 to more than $2.5 million a year today. "The wonderful Boston corporate community and I have given the BSO a living legacy," Krentzman said. MATCHING SKILLS WITH NEEDS A master of matching skills with the task at hand, Krentzman has even devised an effective committee structure to keep his large mishpahah connected. Krentzman family reunions—his brainchild, held throughout New England every three years—have run for the past 18 years. Their success is directly due to the fact that responsibilities such as decorations, location and programming are handled by groups of nieces, nephews and others, based on their skills and interests. Organizing the brood is no small feat. Krentzman and his 86-year-old sister, Doris Tushman, are two of 75 living descendants of their father, Samuel, who immigrated to Chelsea, Mass., from Lithuania in 1908. (Two of Chet's brothers and four sisters are deceased.) Yet, 66 people attended the seventh and most recent reunion. "Committees are the glue that introduces the family to each other," Krentzman says. The self-admitted "chief genealogist of the family," Krentzman's younger son, Scott, has been filming the Krentzman reunions since their creation. At the most recent reunion he handed out a DVD retrospective, which included footage from the two previous gatherings. Two reunions ago, he distributed a 70-page genealogy report and family tree. "It's one thing for the older people who know everyone, but it's another to help the younger ones understand where they fit in," he says. Fitting life's puzzle pieces into place is how Harvey "Chet" Krentzman says his mind works: "If I see a need, I've got to figure out how to satisfy it. I have been doing that in the business world for over 40 years, and in the philanthropic world for over 30 years."
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On the other end is a female executive, formerly of CVS, looking to network with Krentzman. "Dear, you've caught me at a bad time," he tells her, ten minutes into hobnobbing and marveling over the many connections they have in common. He finds her résumé among the papers on his desk and holds it in his free hand.