I had the good fortune this past week of attending the Del Webb Sun Cities Museum program in Sun City West. It featured Don Tuffs who was hired in the 70's by the DEVCO Corporation. He worked with Jerry Svendson in marketing/promotions and when Sun City West opened ran the Sun Dome. Don was on the museum board when i was there and has recently gone back on it. He is a welcome addition and has a wealth of knowledge. The program featured his years of running the now plowed under Sun Dome. It was pure joy to hear all of the stories and see the photo's and the amazing role he played in our two communities development. As Don was telling his story, he kept mentioning his boss, John Meeker. It's the one name that if given the chance to resurrect the dead and have a face to face with, i would pick him. He was the true genius behind Sun City's success. God love Del Webb, but Meeker was the man that saved Sun City. Rather than making this thread read like the novel War and Piece, i will break it into multiple posts and try and keep it shorter and more on point. As i was reading through my old Sun Cities Today blog, i came across two linked blogs i wrote on Meeker and both contained links that are invaluable. Meeker was interviewed by Melanie Sturgeon while she was serving as an intern at the museum and working on her masters degree. It is posted as an oral history and is incredibly powerful. The second is John Meeker's own journals on the making of Sun City. The link is to his summary entitled A Look Back and should be mandatory reading for every board member and potential buyer in Sun City. Stay tuned as i will post both of those blogs in the next two days.
The first read is actually backwards, because it was the second in a two-part series. I'm posting this way, because the link attached to the blog is without question the best overview ever written about Sun City. It was written by John Meeker and was left to the museum by his daughter when he died. There's two massive folders but the the 30 page summary reads as if you were there when it was built. He is not modest about his role in Sun City's success but if you take the time to read it, you will see he credits so many others in putting together one of the most amazing ventures ever undertaken. This was written Jan 5, 2012, enjoy: The second step…Meeker and a look back. It’s 4 am in the morning and the “curse” that has bothered me most of adult life woke me with a nagging sense of urgency. Falling back to sleep wasn’t an option, the computer was my only source for relief. I needed to find the keyboard and vent a bit. Seems i’ve always found people getting screwed to be a bit of a problem. You read in my last blog about John Meeker’s involvement with Sun City via his oral history. In my opinion, once the concept was started, his actions in leading DEVCO to a whole better place resulted in Sun Cities unequaled success. As is said in my last post, there is no better chronicle of how it evolved than his journal summary in A Look Back. I’ve posted this document before and i know some of you have read it. Frankly, if i could, i would make it mandatory reading for every board member and staffer in Sun City. I would bind it and give a copy to every Sun City resident wanting one so they could see up close and personal how and why Sun City came together as well as it did. It wasn’t an accident, Meeker and the people working for DEVCO and especially for him, did the right things. They forgot about the corporation and focused on the people. Imagine in that in today’s society and in the modern spectrum of business practices we see from corporations where the almighty dollar is all that matters. In 1965 Meeker walked into a community where the divisive actions by the community leaders had fractured relations and left residents fighting with each other. It was a recipe for failure. If you recall, there were two rec centers by years end 1964; the older Community Center (now Oakmont) and the newer, nicer Town Hall (the old Fairway). One paid a mandatory yearly fee, the other a voluntary. It resulted in one of the facilities open to all and the other used only by a portion of the community (unless Community Center was closed for repairs). Meeker called it the mini-Berlin Wall. It divided the community that bad. Within two years and behind the hard-working Owen Childress, they found a solution (and one to this day that has served the community well). DEVCO had a policy of non-involvement (so much so that it was one of the three founding tenets from 1960 to 1965). It was standard practice for a builder to turn the keys over to the new buyer and then forget them. Meeker instituted a 60 day home warranty program that people loved. It built brand loyalty. Residents in those early years still talk about Del Webb as if he personally handed them the keys to their house. John started giving great prizes away a club meetings (and according to his journal, most of those clubs were all but dead from lack of interest). Once he did that people turned out in droves and in his words: “When the first television set was given away to one of the ten or so people attending a club function, the next month’s meeting drew a very large crowd looking for that big prize, but instead found friendship and companionship. Of course other expensive prizes were given away, but this certainly indicated a need for DEVCO’s participation and direction to promote interaction between residents. Promotion of companionship, a most important human need, became a valuable sales tool for DEVCO.” This concept of residents becoming a “sales tool” was the boiler plate behind Sun City’s growth. Home sales from 1968 though build out in 1978 were phenomenal; averaging nearly 2000 homes per year. In fact he described how it worked in this paragraph: “The only contact the salesmen were allowed was to give the vacationers a slide presentation , their free golf passes and a box of cactus jellies. No high pressure salesmanship was allowed.” Picture that in your mind when you get the offer for the free gas, grill or whatever the gimmick is to get you to attend a seminar in buying into a “vacation condo special.” All you have to do is be pounded on by sales people trying sell you that time share for few hours or days. Meeker did it by letting potential buyers interact with those living here. It worked like a charm because people loved the community, loved the company and wanted it to succeed. Page 19 has a section on Community Relations. It’s long and i won’t reprint it other than this portion of the opening paragraph:”DEVCO made it’s commitment to become more involved with residents for one very simple reason; to sell more homes. With prospects making several visits before buying and resident contact inevitable, it was imperative to make present residents enthusiastic spokespersons for the Sun City way of life. This naturally meant spending money on a variety of activities to promote companionship , happiness and security beyond expenditures for those physical facilities already provided by the recreation centers, golf courses and shopping centers.” Let’s read that last sentence again: “This naturally meant spending money on a variety of activities to promote companionship, happiness and security beyond expenditures for those physical facilities already provided by the recreation centers, golf courses and shopping centers.” Damn, spot on, the community was more than just buildings and golf courses. Sure he’s blunt they did it to sell more homes, but the fact is, it worked on every level…nothing but win/win. I could go on for hours but i know the more i write, the more i lose people. The point here is we have seen just the opposite tack of late. The corporation is making decisions with their eye more on the money than on the people. In an email i received last night i was questioned how a dead man’s estate was back billed for a trust transfer made back in 2003 and now when the home just sold somehow the RCSC was paid two PIF and transfer fees. There are two things we know: First, we know Meeker’s plan worked. The other thing we know is the more divisive issues we put on or in front of residents, the more they dislike the things the RCSC is doing. You can’t build a stronger sense of community by driving wedge issues between the residents. The reason i can’t sleep at night is we are on track to keep trudging along the same failed paths we started going down in 2008, but more on that in the next week. If you missed the attached link, here it is again A Look Back.
Thanks for re-posting this Bill! I visited my grandparents in their Sun City home in 1965 and 1968. They did most of their activities at Oakmont which was closest to their home. This home was eventually purchased by my parents in 1983 and in 2016 it became my sister's getaway from the frigid north. Such rich history and we can only hope it weathers the future.
Dang aggie, i am always in awe of people who saw those early years. They were truly something very special. While not having lived them, i have read countless stories by those who have. Meeker's is the best of the best in that he truly understood what they built changed the face of America. Let me repeat that: Sun City changed the face of America. Retirement no longer meant waiting to die near family and friends. It was all about starting the second phase of your life. Whenever i give a talk on the history of the community, invariably people come up and tell me how passionate i am about the subject. I am, because i understand just how passionate those who built it were. They wanted to get it right. There were a hundred missteps, but they never stopped tweaking it. They knew if it was to endure, it had to be built on a solid foundation. For those of you who read the 30 plus pages, you know John never stopped asking those living here what they could do better? There-in is the reason i hate when the board makes a decision in a vacuum. The idea to spend 40 million dollars on golf because they can, is far removed from how the community was built. It ignores of all the fundamentals of our past and forges forward with little or no regard to what worked for all those years. Everyone knows it's a pain in the ass to work with committees, to talk to people about what they want, but if you are a student of those early years, you know it worked beyond anyone's best guess. Think about it this way: Sun City was the blueprint for every active age restricted community that followed. Why in God's name would we ignore the basics that worked for the first 40 years? Meeker was simply a genius who wanted to get it right. The first 5 years were hit and miss, but from 1965 through 1978, the structure he put in place, the one that averaged 2000 home sales per year was rock start status. If you are dumb enough not to pay attention to it, you should stay as far away from community governance as you can.
Before i post the interview tomorrow, let me say a couple of things. Anyone that has been to the museum knows just how good it is. That said, there is nowhere you will read the information from A Look Back. The displays are filled with tons of info, but nothing like you just read. There is no way to display it and consequently it is buried, like so many other remarkable pieces there. But that's a whole other story. My bigger issue is to jar your imagination a bit and think about it in these terms: Picture if 10 years back we had given every long range planning committee member a copy of A Look Back. At that same time we had passed copies along to every incoming board member and for giggles asked senior management to read it cover to cover. The value is in getting those making these incredible decisions to understand what went into the making of Sun City. It wasn't accidental or lucky; it was hard work and believing in those around them to buy into their vision. The reality is we cannot go back and fix what has been done, we can however look forward and use A Look back to look forward. Possible?
I hope you do E, it is worth the 30 minutes of your time to understand what most living in Sun City will never even see. As i said, the blog posted yesterday was the second in a two-part post. The first is re-posted below and was written on Jan1, 20012. As you will read, it was just before my first days service on the RCSC board and was in effect and effort to push myself to encourage history taking a more integral place in the governance of our community. As in so many other instances of serving on the board, I failed. With that on the table, below is that blog and more importantly a link to the Meeker interview. It is not as good a read as A Look Back, but it is filled with a historical perspective of the community and why it worked. Here it is: The first step in an interesting journey… The date is January 1. 2012; it is a thrilling time for me as a whole new adventure is beginning. The past three years on the board of the Del Webb Sun Cities museum has been as enlightening a period as i have ever been party to (and that is saying a lot). Since sobering up some 36 years ago, i have always looked at the turn to a new calendar year as another opportunity to grow. My working years were filled with changes, but these past 8 years of retirement have been ever better. I try to live me life one day at a time. That’s not always easy, but it does help keep me grounded. Funny thing is, i find the best opportunity to grow comes from looking back, studying those who were good at what they did and how they did it. Some see that as a foolish waste of time; i don’t. In fact, the very essence of life is having the capacity to learn, to understand how to become more effective and better at what we do. I look at it a continuing education, it’s just there are no CEU’s that go with being self-taught. That’s quite alright, i found those plaques on the wall to be little more than dust collectors. My plan today was to write this lengthy piece about John Meeker and his remarkable personal journals called “Sun City: A Look Back 1959 – 1981.” In my humble opinion, there is perhaps no better treatise on how and why Sun City worked. It is that good. The two-volume set was given to the Del Webb Sun Cities museum by his daughter shortly after John died in 2002. Inside on the first page is a post-it note that says; “If you plan to throw this away, please contact his daughter Suzanne Meeker Jones.” Throw it away? It should become Sun City’s bible and mandatory reading for every board member of the RCSC and anyone even remotely interested in this community. I personally want to thank Suzanne for bringing it to us and allowing it to become part of our archives. Hopefully some day people will fully understand the remarkable role her dad played in making Sun City and Sun City West the communities they are today. I would go so far as to say without his intervention, they may not be even close to having the impact they did on our society. However, in beginning my research on this project, i was sidetracked (nothing new there for me). I came across John’s oral history on the Del Webb Sun Cities Museum web site. I started reading and couldn’t stop. It has been transcribed and his recollections during the interview are simply too good to ignore. The challenge is it is 32 pages in length and while there some typo’s, it too is well worth the read. I toyed with posting one or two of his quips to hook you, but felt it was more important that you read it because you wanted to, rather than because i think you should. Here is the link . I won’t belabor this, you either will or will not read his oral history. Personally it will be your loss, but not everyone has the same interests or yen to learn. I found reading the transcript a whole new level of respect for those who took a failing Sun Cities (Florida, California as well as the original here in Arizona were all but dead by the mid 1960’s) and turned it around. In the coming week i will elaborate more from his journal, but for now, anyone having the slightest inclination to understand why or how Sun City was transformed will take the time to read this. The journey? Tomorrow is my first meeting as a member of the board of directors for the Rec Centers of Sun City (RCSC). I have found the lack of interest in the history of this community to be disconcerting. I guess only time will tell if they can get their arms (and heads) around why it matters. Stay tuned! In case you missed it, here is the link to the Meeker Interview.
A pretty good read, Bill. I made it through about 20 pages, will get to the rest later. The key message I saw, they asked the people what they wanted, listened to what they said, and did it. That seemed to be the key to success. It is really interesting to read about the things that were tried to better the community, but public outcry (right or wrong) won out. I think this is where management and the board could learn a few things. The community may not be right all the time, but when the BOD doesn't listen to the voice of the community the community looses interest. When the community looses interest it is not a good thing.
Thank you Bruce.spot on. Everything the DEVCO folks did was about getting the feed back from those living here. Interesting to note, as E did, Meeker desperately wanted Sun City to incorporate. The simple truth was, the majority of those living here had no interest. The push was to get revenue sharing from taxes that cities get back, but once you do that, the structure grows unwieldy. It feeds off itself and sooner or later we would have become just another city like all the others around us. Thank goodness people resisted, and for those who don't know, the incorporation battle went on for nearly 25 years. If only those in power were smart enough to learn from those who came before us eh?
No, but the whole idea behind volunteerism would have gone away. Sun City Grand is incorporated (part of Surprise), but is still age restricted (though they are much more liberal with their 80/20 allowance).
In the second book of his journal's left by his daughter at the museum were the secondary plans if John didn't turn Sun City around. It included an industrial park and hon-age restricted homes. Most people have no idea how close Sun City came to simply being south of Grand Ave only. Meeker was the genius, Webb was the name that sold the community.
