A Day in the Life of a Records Manager - Records management, business records storage

A Day in the Life of a Records Manager
By Marsha L. Daly,
Records Manager; University of New Mexico
June 1998 Back to The Records Team

One day I received a phone call from an ARMA professional and friend, Tom Gautsch. He asked if I would be interested in taking on a project to inventory a local company’s records. My response was a quick one, “When do we start?” Tom asked ARMA friend, Jesse Ballou, to join in our efforts. Soon, the three of us found ourselves in the back room of a small office building staring, in awe, at 30 full filing cabinets as well as a vast array of boxes containing more records and materials to be inventoried in a specified three days. My initial thought of panic was, “What was I thinking to take on this job?” After a couple of silent moments, the next response was a little quieter and more humble in tone, “Where do we start?”

The plan was in place. Jesse would start at one end of the filing cabinets and I would begin at the other, drawer by drawer, listing the contents of each file folder onto legal pads. Tom began organizing the boxes for the inventory process. We worked steadily through the morning, while sharing moments of catch-up chitchat and periods of comfortable silence. As I worked, I became increasingly interested in the information that lay before us. The names, dates, and extraordinary facts seemed to resurrect childhood memories into renewed animation. I was suddenly surrounded by playful memoirs of the stick figure, Reddy Kilowatt. As I thumbed through the newspaper cartoons, coloring books, the memorabilia from the “Reddy Kilowatt Safety Club”, I traveled back to a little girl time left untouched for ages. Gradually, I began to learn facts of the sordid history of this childhood cartoon friend and grew more enthralled with Reddy’s story.

Mr. A.B. Collins, Sr. was an enterprising businessman living in Atlanta, Georgia during the 1920’s. He was acute to the reality that electricity was a valuable commodity and was faced with the problem of how to sell his product to the public. One stormy night, while sitting in his office, he pondered potential marketing techniques. He sat deep in thought and watched a thunderstorm occurring outside his window. Typed in his own words we found on an onion skin document, Mr. Collins recounted that a lightning bolt appeared in the sky before him in the shape of a stick figured caricature. This was the spark Mr. Collins needed to creatively market electricity. After several name adaptations, Reddy Kilowatt was christened. His caricature also went through a variety of transformations, eventually fashioned with a light bulb nose and electrical socket ears.

As our inventory process continued, we learned more of this life story. The records revealed that Reddy became known worldwide. His Safety Clubs and Environmental Programs sojourned to South America to Europe to Japan to Australia. After A.B. Collins had successfully launched his product and electrical sales soared, he was forced to protect and defend his Reddy Kilowatt creation in court, more than once. We found lengthy depositions involving other companies that attempted to create and introduce competitive rivals. “Willie Wizard Hands”, drawn with lightening shaped fingers, was among the litigants. Politics also tried to quench our fire bolt friend. We found a variety of political cartoons depicting Reddy and his promotion of electricity as a greedy monster savagely stealing money from the poorest of citizens. Comparable to finding rare gems, we occasionally stumbled upon precious photos, which were eventually destined for the Smithsonian Institute.

Why were we assigned to inventory these records? After the death of A.B. Collins, Sr., his son, A.B. Collins, Jr., inherited the existing business in Albuquerque and the legal right to Reddy Kilowatt. Northern States Power Co. in Minneapolis made a bid for the Reddy Kilowatt copyright. Mr. Collins, Jr., thought perhaps Reddy had been dormant for too many years and decided to accept the offer. Along with the copyright, all remaining memorabilia and records were to be sent with an accurate correlating inventory. As this project was completed, the result was three Records Information Managers who were left feeling a job well done, and a little warmer from the unexpected surprise of having a bit of nostalgic history rekindled for them.

Back to The Records Team

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