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Ask Murray Goodman to recall his first sale in the family business, and his recollection is immediate. He was a freshman in high school, and he was working part time.
"It was a used file cabinet," he says. "I don't know why you remember your first sale, but there it is."
Goodman is chief executive of Goodmans Interior Structures. He learned the business from his father, who started it in 1954, and he's been working shoulderto-shoulder with -his son, Adam, for the past 11 years.
The Goodmans are one of a few formidable office furniture companies in the Southwest, and as a father-son team in a growing market, they're probably rare.
Their offices are side by side, separated by a sliding wall of glass and Wall Talker, a trademarked vinyl product that functions as a display screen or as whiteboard. On a recent business day, Adam has handwritten notes on his side of the wall. Adam is the true paperless executive. Except for the corporate documents and memos that cross his desk daily, there hardly is any paper in Adam's office. He does not have a wastebasket. Murray isn't quite at that stage yet His wastebasket is emptied...