Promoter, Idea Man Gene Kasper Grew Up With Auburn

-- AUBURN

Selling second-grade lettuce door-to-door during the Great Depression was hardly a stepping stone to a career in business or community service.

And backing a transit bus into a power pole just doesn't win an employer's confidence.

But Gene Kasper overcame these stuttering starts and moved on to a multifaceted career - retailing, public relations, promotions and plain old huckstering - doing all of it at the same time.

After "retiring" a year ago following 16 years as manager of the Auburn Chamber of Commerce, the old itch returned, and at 69 he stepped back into the job market.

As always, he strove to prove to himself and others that almost anything you take a shot at can be done. All it takes is a head full of ideas, a strong will, and being a little bit pushy, (well, maybe more than a little in Kasper's case).

"If anything, my life has been flavorful. . . that's the enjoyment of it all," he said, glancing up from his coffee cup at the Federal Way Denny's and looking out over the SeaTac Mall. "I just wanted to prove that someone my age could go out and establish himself in the work place.

Kasper has spent virtually his entire life in Auburn. He's had a front seat in watching the metamorphosis of a slumbering railroad and farm town to a thriving commercial-industrial-business center.

"The first thing that comes to mind about Gene is his energy. He can be overwhelming to some people," said Betty Cannon, chamber secretary for 23 years, 16 of those working with Kasper.

Work has always been a challenge to Kasper, who arrived in Auburn as an infant from Kennewick in 1923 with his family. As a teenager, Kasper packed lettuce in boxes at an Auburn "lettuce barn" on one of the many truck farms that once spread side-by-side down the Green River Valley.

He recalls that the not-so-nice heads were set aside and workers took them home. But the wily Kasper knocked on doors and sold his culls for a few cents. Money was money in the Depression, when Auburn's population was 4,000.

In those early years, Main Street was his "home." He would wait for the circus train at the old East Auburn station, help set up the circus grounds in return for free tickets to performances and work in the family clothing store on Main Street.

Burying his head in his hands and chuckling, he recalled the incident at the old interurban bus depot, when he backed into a utility pole:

"I was in high school then. . . . . showing off for a bunch of friends who were waiting for me to go skiing."

That was the real Kasper - a showman. But he also was an entrepreneur, idea man, promoter, mover and shaker all rolled into one.

He was president of the Auburn High School Class of 1940 when he and fellow students help promote the drive to install lights at the football field.

"Hey, I took long bike rides before it became fashionable," he recalls. "I remember when Don Greggs and I rode to Yakima over Chinook Pass. Another time Charlie Peckenpaugh and I rode to Pasco."

Greggs, who owns G.O.S. Printing in Auburn, remembers that trip as a "wild ride down the other side of Chinook Pass - steep, exciting and scary.

"We've been friends since we were kids . . . No matter what job he took on, he finished it and did it well. Gene has always given more of himself than he's taken in from this town by a long ways."

Kasper still rides a bicycle, but not in the style of his teen years when he tooled down Main Street - backward.

Like many of his peers Kasper enlisted at the outbreak of World War II. He served with the Navy for four years, spending most of that time in the South Pacific as a storesman.

In 1946 he took over his father's apparel store and put his ideas to work. His flair for promotion led to hiring of a rock band for a sale. It "didn't go over too big" with nearby merchants, he said; they complained about the noise and forced Kasper to end the entertainment.

The "sale room" at his store was another inspiration.

"I like to think we were the forerunners of Nordstrom's Rack," he says. "We were in a new arena of marketing . . . discounters were coming in and competition was getting tough."

And there was the time a huge crowd waited for the store to open and take advantage of a dozen free Beatles concert tickets he was offering during a Washington Birthday sale.

"We did all sorts of kookie promotions," he recalls. "We had sales when sales meant something . . . people lined up waiting to get in."

Don Lisko, president of Cascade Community Bank in Auburn, calls Kasper "a great retail promoter . . . . He could come up with all kinds of programs, gimmicks and schemes. He did a lot for this community."

Kasper's move into the big leagues came in 1960 when he met with Jay Rockey to offer several ideas to promote the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. It was a meeting of minds that lasted 23 years.

"He came out of left field and said what the fair needed was something to pull together the entire state," says Rockey, who was director of public relations and advertising for the fair and now is president of The Rockey Company. "As a result, he took on the state beautification program.

"Contemplating the fair now, Gene was one of the unsung heroes. What he achieved in bringing together all those cities and winning their support was definitely critical to the eventual success of the fair. I'm not sure anyone else could have done it."

Kicking off the state promotion, Kasper had Auburn challenge every other city in a cleanupp program. It was a success and was the forerunner of the statewide anti-litter and recycling program.

From that point on, Bella Kasper ran the store while her husband tramped all over the state starting and running a variety of projects and programs - all people- and issue-oriented.

"She's always been my partner," he says. "We always work side by side."

For the next two decades, Kasper was an account executive for Rockey specializing in campaigns, grass-roots promotions and corporate community relations while his wife continued to keep things running at the store.

Kasper's list of endeavors is a long one, including:

-- Organizing and motivating local and statewide support groups for such ballot issues as the corporate income tax, log export and open spaces and early on served as director and coordinator for the Shorelines Management Act.

-- Being executive director of the industry sponsored community anit-litter program, Clean and Beautiful Inc. for 10 years.

-- Organizing the first commercial King County Fair. Previously the fair was primarily a 4-H-oriented activity.

-- Establishing and being manager for the first two years of the Washington Council for International Trade.

-- Originating for Auburn one of the 17 Goodwill Games certified community projects, "Auburn Welcomes The World" host-family project.

-- As a salute to Canada's Expo '87, organizing 100 U.S. communities to plant Canadian maple trees in a one-day event.

The list goes on and on.

Kasper's philosophy is simple: "I always chose my project. I don't do it unless it's meaningful to some purpose or cause."

He continues to plunge head on, making his Federal Way home his base of operations. In his second go-around of a work life, he leads off his resume with "Gene Kasper is an enthusiastic and goal-oriented senior . . . seeking new and more exciting challenges."

Among his current activities, with Bella still his partner, Kasper is a marketing representative for the now-national Kenadar Corp., the firm that promoted and installed the inscribed floor tiles at the Pike Place Market. He's also spearheading the Senior Expo at the Tacoma Mall on June 26-28.

Auburn is still dear to him.

"Despite the great influx of people over the years," he says, "Auburn remains the same. Some communities are artificial . . . full of flash, sparkle, aluminum and glass. Auburnites are sincere and have a great desire to help."

The hallmark of Auburn's open heart, he adds, is best exemplified by the recent outpouring of emotion and help offered to Auburn High senior Trapper Nicholson. Almost $90,000 was raised to help pay for a bone-marrow transplant to save the cancer-stricken youth.

"The community really came together," says Kasper. "So many people wanted to do so much . . . there weren't enough jobs to go around." Kasper worked on one committee.

Gone are the days when you could ride a horse down C Street (now Auburn Way North and South); when you could ride a bike from the old elementary school on West Main to M Street during the lunch hour (traffic is too much to cope with now). Gone is the circus train and lettuce farms.

But Gene Kasper remembers. He, in turn, is remembered, striding down Main Street, red hair (now graying) blowing in the breeze, on a mission - stepping out to meet another challenge.

Know someone special in the community we should be writing about? Drop us a note at South County Life, 31620 23rd Ave. S., Suite 312, Federal Way, WA 98003.