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70 || CELEBRITY MAGAZINE || MAY-JUNE 2017grounds, we found that it was actually safer than Aspirin! It was such a non-harmful product that I would drink it on presentations, and I remember this one time when I got my first big contract. I went to Edwards Air Force Base, and I cleaned this jet engine that had been out in the desert for two years while the engineers watched. I licked the wing and turned around, and it was like a sea of ants as they were taking my product off the truck so quickly. After that, we got a contract to clean the space shuttle, and we have had a GSA contract ever since to clean the military equipment and all the tents. I even spent time in a nuclear submarine for a weekend and a nuclear aircraft, and that%u2019s really how we got off the ground initially. As we moved forward in the industrial arena, people were so amazed, but I wanted to make sure that if we were going to solve these problems, I was not then causing other problems down the line and downstream. I ended up spending five years at Duke University doing research to prove that the by products of doing ocean clean ups would not hurt any sea life, which nobody had ever done before. We actually wrote the protocol before the Valdez oil spill which was the worst crude oil in the world. We did all our open water testing at Duke in 1984 to prove that downstream it wouldn%u2019t hurt crustaceans or the smallest shrimp or sea life. So we were listed on the EPA%u2019s oil contingency clean up list, and we were used all around the world.What was the biggest challenge you have ever faced in the running of your company over the years?My most difficult time was in the late seventies, when interest rates had climbed to almost 22% during the Carter administration. When we started our business, we were just two Italians that had no business background and didn%u2019t want to make things too difficult, and we just wanted to solve problems so we used Simple Green, Simple Red, and Simple blue for various types of cleaning. I sold on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, delivered on Tuesday and Thursday, and did the books on Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, we could not get anyone to lend us any money for our dream because in those days people did not care about the environment. Everyone was using very toxic materials to do all types of cleaning that were harmful and carcinogenic, but people just didn%u2019t care. We could not get a loan, so in 1979 we had to borrow street money to make payroll, and one day in order to make our payments, we had to go to Vegas and try to win rent on the craps table. We lost, took the bus home, and I had to fire myself and go on commission. By December of 1979, the stress was so great that my dad had a heart attack and died. I was told by my attorney and clients that I should just close the doors, but I owed half a million dollars and had 16 different creditors. They told me I was D.O.A. and I should file bankruptcy. However, I knew his death could not be for nothing and that I was going to stay with it until they closed the door or locked me out. I persevered and went to the 16 companies where I owed money and convinced the CFOs to sign an agreement saying they would give a moratorium on the interest, and I agreed to pay them 120% of what I owed. I went from being basically out of business, to being the biggest customer most of them have today. I call that the %u201cvalley of death,%u201d from 1980-1984; I lost my house, my car, my credit cards, and I would walk to work. I was doing everything from selling t-shirts to selling vitamins to whatever it took to make rent and pay off my debts and keep Simple Green alive.So how did Simple Green finally find success?We struggled through 1984 and we had all those test results coming back from Duke University and we had those GSA contracts, and then suddenly all the automotive sellers across the country wanted to take our product. We rolled out nationally to Pep Boys and JC Penny and Sears Automotive. Then, all of a sudden, Walmart and Costco came calling, and we were able to get into the automotive section, and into virtually any store that had an automotive section because everyone realized how effective we were. It then evolved into home improvement centers, and we became the featured item at Ace, Home Depot, and Lowes, and now our whole family of products are available at those outlets. The home improvement centers are the sweet spot for our product because you%u2019ve got the homeowner, the house wife, the business man, the small business, the guys that are carpenters, plumbers, and anyone that needs a cleaning product or solution that doesn%u2019t want to have cancer or have flammables, then Simple Green was and continues to be the answer. That is our absolute gold mine.How do you stay abreast of the current trends/developments in cleaning products and continually develop new ideas?We pre-dated Earth Day, and in the late seventies and