9-Year-Old’s Marathon Dream Fosters Channel Legend’s Legacy

Love him or hate him, but there is no disputing the fact that Dick Sanford has had a major impact on the IT distribution/reseller/value-added channel. And now, he is changing the lives of the less fortunate with the help of his 9-year old grandson, through Operation Warm, a charity he founded to provide 200,000 new winter coats to children in need every year.

Back to that in a bit, but first let’s get some history out of the way.

Sanford founded Intelligent Electronics in 1982 and made a string of high profile acquisitions, including Today's Computers Business Centers (TCBC), Entre Computer Centers and Connecting Point of America–which brought it the highly valuable Apple medallion. At this time IE had more than 700 franchise dealers and sales were more than $700 million in 1989.

IE’s franchise base rose to more than 1,000 locations and its state-of-the-art just-in-time distribution system allowed its franchise to keep cash flow going and reduce inventory risk. Its revenues then hit $1.4 billion, and a secondary public offering brought in more than $96 million back to the company. Life was good for Sanford and Co.

Then the company tried to enter the retail business and acquired BizMart for the inflated price of $190 million-plus. A year after the BizMart deal, IE’s sales neared $2 billion with healthy profits.

But Wall Street started to ask a lot of questions. The acquisition frenzy made its financials hard to model. Plus, the fact that Sanford was a shrewd businessman who never really warmed up to the analyst community or industry press didn’t help his cause. As a channel reporter, I covered IE in the early 1990s and can tell you Sanford rarely gave interviews. When he did, he was usually short, impatient and not forthcoming. I remember driving to his Exton, Pa., headquarters, only to get 45 minutes of his time. I felt lucky he let me stay there long enough to use the restroom.

He also changed presidents, who he micromanaged to the nth degree and everyone in the industry knew it. Eventually, even his accounting techniques were too much and his CFO would not sign off on the quarterly numbers, abruptly resigning. It was the beginning of the end of IE. Sanford ended up selling its large distribution network to Ingram Micro for $78 million in cash and liabilities.

Sanford’s difficult personality and business practices eventually caught up with him. But make no mistake: He was a pioneer of the current IT solution provider channel. In fact, Ingram’s VentureTech Networks was born out of IE’s elite resellers. I would actually credit Jim Ciccarelli for this vision more than Sanford, but Sanford was the deal-maker.

Fast forward 13 years and Sanford’s legacy lives on. Sanford’s 9-year old grandson, Nikolas Toochek, runs for charity and after completing his first full marathon in December in Lewes, Del., he plans to participate in the White Continent Marathon & Half, Feb. 25 in Antarctica as part of his “Running the World for Children” campaign. His goal is to run a marathon on all seven continents. This kid deserves all the support he can get.

Love Sanford or hate him, Sanford’s legacy lives on.

Knock em alive!