The Greatest Generation

Alice Zea leaves the list business after 38 years When Alice Zea sold her list company, AZ Marketing Services Inc., to 21st Century Marketing last November, she closed an important chapter in the history of the list business.

Zea, who turns 82 this month, began her direct marketing career in 1962 when she joined Names Unlimited in New York as an accounting and personnel clerk. From the start, she did things her own way.

For example, she wore pants to work even though it displeased her employer, her brother Arthur Martin Karl, who’d been in the list business since the 1920s. “I wore them anyway,” Alice says. And she shunned the “old boys’ club” that existed in the industry at the time.

Alice, who had a degree in psychology from New York University, soon graduated to brokering lists for clients like Miles Kimball, Spencer Gifts and Sunset House, and became an important member of the company. She was the youngest of three siblings to make it in the list business; the third was Walter Karl, who left Names Unlimited and founded his own firm in the early 1960s.

At the time of Arthur Martin Karl’s unexpected death in 1970 at age 60, Alice and several co-workers, including Stan Woodruff, Charlie Crane, Bob Castle and Doug Flynn, were moving forward with plans to buy the company. With Karl’s blessing, the group had engaged a lawyer to help work out the details. Arthur’s widow Janet, however, had other ideas. She thought the business should remain in the family and be given to Arthur’s son Robert. She fired Zea. “That was the end of that,” Alice says.

Names Unlimited was ultimately sold to insurance company Colonial Penn (it later became part of Computer Directions Group). And Robert Karl moved on to found the Robert Karl Co., a list brokerage firm in Portland, OR.

Now unemployed, Zea began to network with industry colleagues. In 1971, she landed a position as a broker at Direct Media, which was then located in Rye, NY. “My savior was Dave Florence (Direct Media’s founder and CEO),” Zea remembers. “I called him, went up to see him, and to my amazement he hired me.”

She joined Direct Media’s five-employee firm, and helped it expand from business-to-business into the consumer arena, she says.

Five years later, Zea walked into Florence’s office to announce that she was leaving to start her own business. “I had a very strong desire to do my own thing,” she explains. “Dave’s advice to me was, `Running a company isn’t as easy as you may think.’ I found that to be true.”

Zea opened a brokerage firm, AZ Lists, in Greenwich, CT on March 3, 1976. The three-person staff occupied two small rooms. Many of her brokerage accounts followed her to AZ Lists; she opened her doors with about 15 clients. In 1979, she began taking on list management accounts. The first big list was Bloomingdale’s new-to-market file.

At first, the firm focused on catalog lists, but Zea soon added fundraising clients and changed the company name to AZ Marketing Services.

Alice was a good boss and teacher, according to Pat Fasano, her secretary at Direct Media. Fasano followed her to AZ and later founded Fasano & Associates in Los Angeles.

“Alice was so instrumental in my success today,” Fasano says. “She’s [got] a wealth of information. We worked really hard, but we had a great time.”

In 1987, Zea purchased a building at 31 River Rd. in Cos Cob, CT – where AZ is headquartered – which she now plans to sell in a separate deal. She finalized the acquisition of AZ, which has 45 employees, on Nov. 30.

“One thing that has sustained me is that I’ve been willing to turn over everything I knew to people working for me so that they could pick up the ball and run with it,” Zea says.

Two examples are Theresa Horn, who worked at AZ for 14 years, and Elyssa Cunningham, a 13-year employee. Last June, both were named co-presidents at AZ. As part of its acquisition by 21st Century, they’re now senior vice presidents at the new, as-yet-unnamed firm.

While Alice remains as a consultant at the new location and plans to work on an as-needed basis, she’s focusing on personal enjoyment. She’ll continue to mentor a 7-year-old boy from a local school once a week, and hopes to volunteer for a literacy program. She’s seen much of the world, and now plans to travel around the United States and indulge two of her interests – bird watching and visiting museums.

In 1995, Zea received the Woman of the Year Award from Women’s Direct Marketing International, which she helped found. Last year, she received the Silver Apple Award from the Direct Marketing Club of New York.

Any parting thoughts? “It’s been absolutely terrific,” Alice says. “Even things that seemed [tragic] turned out to be very fortunate.”