Q&A: Coleman is a true jack of all trades

Vermont Business Magazine, Apr 01, 1997 by Andrews, Richard

Most Vermont innkeepers come from radically different past lives. Jack Coleman, who just turned Chester's Inn at Long Last over to new operators (who have renamed the inn), is no exception. Before he was an innkeeper, he was an economics professor, President of Haverford College, television performer, labor arbitrator, writer, bank director, and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia from 1973-1979. He also was director of a large charitable foundation.

Coleman is a believer in the rejuvenative power of change. In his own published words, "Except for being a child, which I've now done for 75 plus years, I have never done anything for longer than 11 years.

In addition, Coleman promotes sabbaticals into entirely different lives. For years he rook annual leaves incognito, in which he became a ditch digger, restaurant worker, garbage collector, and more. He has been a volunteer policeman in New York City and has spent several stints as an inmate while investigating prison conditions.

Although his sense of innkeeping as theater saved him from burnout, the occupational hazard of innkeepers, Coleman felt the need of something new after a decade. A little more than a year ago he and two other investors bought The Black River Tribune, a weekly newspaper in Ludlow. Although he claims to know no more about newspapering than he initially did about innkeeping or many of his other occupations -- which is nothing -- Coleman hopes to make the paper a vital part of the communities it serves, while at least breaking even.

Richard Andrews interviewed Jack Coleman for Vermont Business Magazine at his apartment on The Green in Chester.

VBM: You just finished a decade running the Inn at Long Last, How was it?

COLEMAN: Harder even than I imagined -- and more satisfying.

The hard part is that you always see so much you'd like to do better. You let bad moods come through when you shouldn't.

The satisfying part is, I had no idea how well I'd come to know guests who returned for the third or fourth visit and became very close friends. And there was enormous satisfaction and great joy in working with my staff. Some remarkable people worked with me, and gave me more than I had any right to ask of them.

VBM: How else did reality differ from expectation?

COLEMAN: Well, I'd hoped to come a little closer to breaking even. I never entertained the idea of making money. I've never had money in my life, and I've never been interested in it particularly. I know that's odd, but it's true. I suffered losses each of the years, but fortunately I had a pension which let me carry on.

I know the inn can be profitable, but it requires somebody to get out and sell the place hard. That's just not my style. I bought a lifestyle, not a market style.

VBM: A lot of people who buy inns do.

COLEMAN: Correct.

VBM: As you probably know, John Kenneth Galbraith facetiously wrote that the Vermont economy is kept afloat by the flow of cash from outsiders buying inns and going broke, I saw innkeeping backstage years ago when I guided cross-country ski tours between country inns, It's a tough business, and many people burn out in three years, How did you avoid that?

COLEMAN: Satisfaction from the people I came to know. And I have an enormous ego. I love being on stage. And here was a chance to be on stage all the time, and to share my love of the past, of good music, of good books. The inn has a remarkable library and a very impressive collection of music. So I could make the inn a kind of theater.

VBM: Do you think Vermont's economy is overly dependent on the tourist industry?

COLEMAN: No. I don't see the alternatives. The natural beauties we have, and the pastoral past we can celebrate, are the greatest strengths in our economy. This is what sets us Japan from other places.

I often quote the 1930s American historian Alan Nevins: "Vermont is every American's second state." There's a lot of wisdom there. This is the America people want to believe in, even as they pursue a different life in their home towns, a frantic kind of stepping to the tune of the day. This is what Vermont has to celebrate.

Sure, it presents problems at times -- people who don't want to change. But that problem is also a strength -- preserving these things. I'd think the inn represented one way of preserving part of that past. And that's the state's biggest selling point.

Of course, it doesn't mean jobs that pay very well. But it gives satisfaction that not only brings the tourist here, but holds a lot of Vermonters here, when young people might well go somewhere else and do better economically.

VBM: You've changed careers about once a decade.

COLEMAN: Correct.

VBM: Why?

COLEMAN: Having said earlier that I didn't burn out, I find that after eight, 10 years, I'm getting stale. I'm going over the same paths again. I'm not coming up with new ideas that excite me. And I have gotten an enormous satisfaction out of finding out new things about myself when I change strides completely.

What did I know about innkeeping before I went into it? Honestly, nothing. What did I know about being a college president before I became one? Nothing!