The Milky Way

When he doffed his navy uniform, Gordon Kennedy, 40, a breezy storekeeper 3rd class and ex-milk company accountant, had the same ambition as many G.I.s. He wanted to own his own business. In Detroit he found a small, unprofitable dairy ready to sell out for $150,000. Kennedy rounded up some 40 veterans, handed each of them 100 five-dollar certificates exchangeable for milk & dairy products, sent them out to work their selling charms on housewives. This brought in $28,000.

Then Kennedy shrewdly capitalized on a long-standing grudge. Ruggedly individualistic Michigan farmers had a scunner against the monopoly-like Michigan Milk Producers' Association, through which they sold their milk to Detroit's dairies-Resentful of the Association's sometimes high-handed methods and always complicated formula for buying milk, the farmers were glad to trade $75,000 for one-year promissory notes to help G.I.s. A $75,000 mortgage on the plant and 39 bank-financed jeeps completed the organization; the Servicemen's Dairy Cooperative Association was ready for business.

Pass Out Bats. Kennedy and Treasurer Jimmy Adichi, 25, American-born Japanese veteran of the Italian campaign, soon ran into trouble. Apartment superintendents, paid by established companies for exclusive rights to peddle milk in their buildings, barred the Servicemen's Dairy. Kennedy threatened to turn them in to the Bureau of Internal Revenue. He had shrewdly suspected that they had not reported their take on their income tax. The superintendents gave in. When the C.I.O. tied up all other dairies in a strike, the Servicemen went right on delivering. The union threatened violence. Kennedy passed out baseball bats to his men, got pistol permits. There was no violence.

Hit a Homer. When established dairies last December raised milk prices 2-c- a quart, Kennedy held the price line, picked up as many as 1,000 new customers a day until the other dairies dropped prices back. As a result, in a year the Association has climbed to seventh among Detroit's 28 dairies, and grossed $1,250,000 in 1946 (estimated net: $60,000).

Kennedy still draws only $100-a-week salary. The milk drivers, who own their own trucks (jeeps proved too small), take care of their own overhead and get a commission of 5^ a quart. Some net $180 a week; the average: $100 a week.

Farmers like to deal with Kennedy so well that last week they were ready to put another $175,000 into the dairy in exchange for stock. Kennedy, who owns 600 of the 1,000 shares outstanding, plans to use the cash to expand. Says he: "Before we're through the big companies are not going to like it."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.