Sandy Bloomberg, the founder of Tweeter, Etc, once a 180-store chain, passed on September 3.
Sandy was the ever-friendly, passionate leader of the chain, which operated mainly on the East Coast and was one of the leading retailers in car audio for many years.
Sandy founded Tweeter in 1972 with his cousin Michael shortly after graduating from high school in 1969. In 2011, he was inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame.
At one time, Tweeter had thousands of employees. The chain closed its doors in late 2008.
Dan Jeancola, a former VP/, said, “The man was a true original. Always listening, so passionate for the products, protective of his team, would come up with some amazing solutions, and he was always faithful to the Tweeter consumer.
“He would go out of his way to acknowledge and greet you. Even if it was a crowded room or if he saw you on a CES floor. What I appreciated about working with Sandy was if he had confidence in you, he allowed you to “run your business.” He let you do what you needed to get the job done. That quality endeared all his long-term team members to be faithful to the brand and also to Sandy.”
“We will all miss those greetings, the passion he brought to the business, and may he have godspeed to the other side.”
Bernie Sapienza, former Tweeter VP Merchandising/GMM described his history at Tweeter:
“I joined Tweeter in 1989. I was brought in as the 12V buyer – a department that needed some love at the time. Being primarily a home audio company, the car audio department was pretty much a red-headed stepchild. There were 13 stores at that time doing about $2M/store. When I left in 2003, we had about 170 stores doing over $800M/yr in sales (with nearly 5,000 employees). To say that I got to go on a wild ride would be a great understatement.
“…Sandy was a natural born retailer. His parents were retailers and it was simply a way of life for him. He had clear understanding of market position and always taught me to only study the big box retailers as a guide to knowing what not to do. He knew that if we played their game, we would lose.
“Among his many industry ‘firsts,’ in 1994, Sandy invented “Automatic Price Protection” (later became a Harvard Business School case study).
“To me, Sandy was a mentor and a friend. Day or night, I could always call him even many years after Tweeter was long gone. Like many of us that have had the privilege of having worked in the best company ever, I will miss him. ”
See Sandy’s obituary in the Boston Globe here.
Photo: Sandy Bloomberg via Legacy.com
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