How many ways can a good man’s life be measured? By the joy he holds for his family, his friends, his work, his community, and himself. By the people he encounters and the way they greet him — with a smile, with an embrace, with unabridged delight. By the visible evidence of his success. The people he employed. The people he helped. The community that, for decades, admired his way of conducting his life.
All that and more encompasses Jack Gyr, and defined the energy and love that greeted Jack at his surprise retirement party earlier this week at St. Ambrose Cellars. I never received an official count but there were a lot of people in attendance from all the charming corners of Jack’s life. Thank you Maggie Sprattmoran, Jack’s wife, for organizing the party, held outdoors on a gorgeous late summer evening.
As founder of Field Crafts, Benzie County’s screen printing company, Jack worked for 48 years to build an accomplished local business that employed dozens of people over the years.
One of his distinctive projects was inventing and patenting he process of subjecting a printed tee shirt to the weight of an industrial stamping machine. When the pounding stopped the shirt was boxed and packaged to resemble a paperback book. Jack’s BookWear products attracted all manner of buyers – colleges, businesses, associations.
Among Jack’s other numerous accomplishments in business was the last one he achieved. He sold Field Crafts to the Dabieros, a Detroit-region family that has been in the screen printing business for 49 years.
A data point is useful here to understand the significance of what Jack accomplished. Some 75 percent of family-owned businesses like Jack’s never sell. The percentage is higher for businesses operating in rural areas. As part of Jack’s retirement plan, which he initiated several years before actually stepping away, he was diligent about finding the right buyer.
On that metric Jack scored big. The Dabieros are a class act. They are keeping the Benzie printing business and staff operating. The Dabieros also sponsored Jack’s retirement party.
And what a spendid time was had by all. Ingemar Johansson, the Song of The Lakes musician and bard of Benzie County, opened festivities with an original song in Jack’s honor. Its lyrics cheered Jack’s expertise with cotton and tee shirts, and recalled his characteristic and sometimes reckless determination that alarmed his family, friends, and staffers.
Lisa Johansson, Barbie tow. (Photo/Keith Schneider)
Last year, for example, while recovering from intestinal surgery Jack broke his ankle this way:
You have never known to be aloof
But please oh please stay off the roof
That’s when things will go awry
There’s better ways to get high
We were privvy to Field Crafts origin stories by Marty Jablonski, who worked with Jack for 32 years, and by Barbie Stow, his first wife and partner who helped get Field Crafts started in the late 1970s in the room of a farmhouse on a bluff overlooking Crystal Lake.
My story with Jack is emblematic for those who know him well, and divine for me. Jack has been a brother since the very earliest days of my arrival in this part of northern Michigan. I gained uncommon levels of admiration for his big heart, his intellect and good sense, his athletic prowess, and the way he conducts himself in every facet of his life. We’ve covered emotional ground during difficult periods in our lives. And we covered miles and miles of actual ground in this beautiful part of the world on our feet, our skis, our bicycles.
Way back in the day Jack put his shoulder to my big enterprise in this county, founding and directing the Michigan Land Use Institute. Among his many gestures of assistance was inviting us to publish the first editions of the MLUI newsletter on his Field Crafts copier back in 1995 and 1996.
That’s the way Jack treated everybody that is his friend and colleague in this part of Michigan. It’s why his retirement party was a joyous occasion, a time to let Jack know he we felt about his presence in our lives, the way he leads our community.
No surprise. The energy and joy directed Jack’s way that evening was received in full. Jack told me the next day he was “still dizzy with the scale of that surprise. My soul has a big deep smile.”
— Keith Schneider
I wasn’t sure, but I guess cats like their water changed regularly????