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Joseph Nusim remembered as innovator, mentor, friend
WAYNE, NJ. - A life-long pioneer in the home channel industry died on April 3 at his home. Joseph Nusim lost his battle with Mantle cell lymphoma, a rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was 72.
An innovator who imported home décor materials from Asia in the 1960s, Nusim is known for helping to pioneer the warehousestore concept in the United States. He also is remembered as a mentor and friend to many people in the home improvement and retail circles through his work at the top rungs of companies like Jamesway, Channel Home Centers and Makro.
But it was at Leo Mishldn's grocery store, in the Southern Boulevard area of the east Bronx, that Joe Nusim really started his career - at age 14, according to his sister, Roberta.
"He had started hanging out with an unsavory group of teens," she said, when his mother pushed him to get a job at the neighborhood grocery store in the late 1940s. That early experience fostered his interest in retail, she said.
"And he stayed there, all throughout his high school years. He always talked later how that job really whet his appetite for working in retail. He started to figure out better ways to display merchandise. He looked at inventory controls," she said with a laugh.
From there, Nusim attended night school at the City University of New York's Baruch College and worked as a women's apparel buyer with Robert Hall Clothes. Following college, he became vp and general merchandise manager for Spartan Industries Department Stores, then moved to mass merchandise retailer Jamesway as executive vp.
In the mid-1980s, Nusim departed Jamesway and...