Texas Border Business
In today’s economic climate, stories of individuals who manage to reach the pinnacle of success are becoming more rare. Meet Reed Allan Melnick, President of Nevill Document Solutions, a New York native who managed to create a very successful business with only an 8th grade education.
Reed moved from New York to Dallas in 1980; he had done about everything that can be called work. “Most of my life I was a piece worker.” He said that in his case he was fortunate to get educated in business. According to him the way you get educated is that you take care of people and find them services that they need.
His parents owned a tile and carpet business, so his first job was putting down floors in brand new homes, along with that he worked at gas stations selling gasoline, oil, cigarettes, and more.
“Another responsibility I had was making sure the air calibration in their tires was correct, and cleaning their windshields. That way, they would come back and I could get more tips,” he told Texas Border Business.
Reed is definitely an exceptional businessman, when he says, “Taking care of people,” he means it. In a way you can say that it is part of his trademark and the foundation of his success.
You can add auto mechanic and palates builder to the list of his jobs but after that he got a job with a professional organization, “I became a salesperson selling copiers back in 1980,” he said.
Reed landed a job with UniCopy Corporation, an organization that sold Canon copiers. He said, “I got my start in Dallas selling Canon copiers in the street just having a territory.”
After a couple years, he became so good that he was building and selling companies for other individuals and was soon able to get another job with a publically owned company called Danka.
Reed said, “I was managing one of their operations and it gave me the opportunity to find different companies for them.” He continued, “We went from a $4 million company to a $31 million company and expanded to about 12 different locations.”
This company gave him stock options, which later allowed him to utilize the earnings to buy half of Nevill in 1997 from Jay Travis Nevill. Reed said that Nevill’s background was in typewriters and calculators. “He was not a copier guy and I had all the experience in copiers.”
The new partnership had one location and the company grew from $1 million to about $8 million expanding from Dallas to Fort Worth and other regions. The partnership agreement had an exit strategy between him and Nevill. At the time Nevill turned 65, Reed would then buy the other half of his company and he did. Reed said, that he was given the opportunity to buy Valley Office Systems a company that defaulted in the Rio Grande Valley, which had expanded throughout South Texas including Corpus Christi and Laredo as well as Reynosa, Mexico.
Reed came into this venture just in time; the defaulted company had left a mess. Businesspeople had signed long-term leases for equipment, supplies, and services; suddenly they had nothing. This gave Reed an opportunity to exercise his belief of serving and treating people right.
On June 27, 2001, Reed’s team came on board and took care of everyone in the Valley and the rest is another success story. “We became the largest dealer for Kyocera Mita,” he finalized.
For more information visit their website at www.nevillsolutions.com. TBB
