Westword - Grandfather Knows Best

Grandfather Knows Best 

April 2, 2009
by Patricia Calhoun, Editor

Jack A. Weil was the oldest still-working CEO in the country when he passed away last summer at the age of 107 - and the founder of Rockmount Ranch Wear hasn't quit working yet. Cleaning up the store at 1626 Wazee Street last month, his granddaughter-in-law came across a manifesto that Jack A. had written more than thirty years ago, during another recession, and made into a poster.

"A few of us can remember the 1930s," he began. "I was there.  The world is not coming to its end, we have simply a long-due settling-up of follies and perhaps greed. Evaluate today's conditions sanely..  We have the know-how and the drive to cure our man-made ills, with old-fashioned common sense, work, judgement." 

Those words of wisdom arrived too late for grandson Steve Weil to include in his book, Ask Papa Jack: Wisdom of the World's Oldest CEO. But his grandfather had already given Steve more than enough to work with, as he'll prove at a free slide show and book-signing at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the LoDo Tattered Cover, 1628 16th Street.