My parents, whose parents emigrated from Russia, Latvia, Poland and Constantinople to the United States, met near the end of World War II in Paris. My father, Ed Chaifetz, was wounded in the Battle of the Rhineland in March of 1945. He was subsequently assigned to the war crimes division after his recuperation where he met my mother , Sally Marco.
By this time, millions of documents about war crimes were coming into Paris and my father designed a system to deal with the magnitude of the challenge of classifying, analyzing and correlating them. He was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for his contribution to the war effort.
My mother was a WAC and received the British Empire Medal for her work in the intelligence department between the British and American Agencies. She told my brother and me that she was sworn to secrecy to her grave to never divulge whatever she did during the war. All I know is she must have been working for some pretty top brass because here's a shot of her on Hitler's yacht. I sincerely doubt there was a long line of GIs waiting to get on board.
My mother was a WAC and received the British Empire Medal for her work in the intelligence department between the British and American Agencies. She told my brother and me that she was sworn to secrecy to her grave to never divulge whatever she did during the war. All I know is she must have been working for some pretty top brass because here's a shot of her on Hitler's yacht. I sincerely doubt there was a long line of GIs waiting to get on board.
Photo Equipment Service Company
My parents built from nothing a very successful camera repair business in West Palm Beach, Florida. By the early 1970s, my father could fix virtually any camera model manufactured in the world. My mother handled the bookkeeping and parts department with ledgers and 3 X 5 cards in such detail that it will boggle the mind of any computer user on the planet.
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I went into the family business in 1974. It was a grand time but short lived as my father passed away two years later. Together with my mother, we were able to keep the business going for another ten years but with the "Old Man" gone, it was never the same. It was no longer the profit center my parents had created and it was time for something new. |
Video was becoming popular in the 1980s. In 1986, I spent $5000.00 and went to a Photo Marketing Association national trade show in Las Vegas promoting video editing services. I was ten years ahead of my time. The big push at the show was transferring old home movies to VHS. So I started doing that and after ten years I became the largest film transfer, VHS duplicator and video editing facility in Palm Beach County.
Video was becoming popular in the 1980s. In 1986, I spent $5000.00 and went to a Photo Marketing Association national trade show in Las Vegas promoting video editing services. I was ten years ahead of my time. The big push at the show was transferring old home movies to VHS. So I started doing that and after ten years I became the largest film transfer, VHS duplicator and video editing facility in Palm Beach County.
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Birth of the Supski
After completing the design of the Supski, I decided to use the same approach as I had for The Edit Centre in 1986. I spent $5000.00 and booked a booth at Surf Expo in Orlando in 2015, demonstrating my garage prototype. An accompanying tradeshow promotional video posted to YouTube got 14,000 views in 30 days. The response was very positive but I didn't have a clue on how to mass produce the product.
I was years away from knowing how to manufacture the Supski, but I didn't know it at the time. I had a lot to learn. That said, I felt just like I did when I started my video business in 1986, that there was a potential market for my idea. You can learn more about the journey I've been on by watching the documentary, "The Making of the Supski".
I get closer and closer every day to making the Supski a reality.