When a superstitious man breaks a mirror,
he prepares for seven straight years of bad luck. On the other
hand, if things are going well, there is a tendency for someone
to “knock on wood” in hopes of keeping good
fortunes on track.
John Riddle, the owner of Atlanta’s
Riddle & Associates, is certainly a superstitious man.
Despite that fact, he is inclined to attribute his
company’s 14 consecutive years of successful Clean Show
management to more than the result of tapping on lucky lumber
or not breaking a
couple of mirrors in that stretch of
time. For him, it’s all the direct result of his
dedicated and hard-working staff.
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“I’ve got the best group of
people that any man can be blessed to work with,” he
explained. “My name’s on the door, but that
don’t mean anything to them. Whatever it takes,
they’ll do it because they’re very, very proud
people. I can’t sing the praises of these folks
enough.”
As most people can imagine, setting up
the Clean Show is no small task. Ranked every other year in the
top 100 in terms of size (out of about 3,600 trade shows), it
takes altogether ten miles of carpet, 100 forklifts, 250 trucks
and 1,000 people to construct.
“That is what intrigues me about
this business — when you take a raw floor that is nothing
but concrete and, in six days, you take 500 companies and put
in steam, air, water and electrical,” John said.
“You’re building things to work for four days, but
you have to build them to be sturdy enough because you’ve
got 15,000 to 30,000 people that will be in that hall. It has
to be a safe environment.”
John likens the process to running an
entire city for a week. At times it is quite stressful and
demanding, yet that just makes it all the more worthwhile in
the end.
“To be able to walk into a building
and see nothing, and then six days later you’re seeing
men and women there exchanging ideas and talking and doing
business. To say I had a hand in that is very rewarding,”
he said.
Even if the Clean Show’s success
stems mostly from the hard work of many, John still likes to
knock on wood when he talks about his work on it. It’s a
habit that dates back quite a few years to his days of
“knocking wood” on the baseball diamond.
Born in 1941 in Kannapolis, North
Carolina — the hometown of racing legend Dale Earnhardt,
Sr. — John grew up with an avid interest in all sports,
especially baseball. After graduating high school, he set his
sights on playing professionally.
In college, he was designated on two
All-American teams — one as an outfielder and the other
as a first baseman. After that, Baltimore Orioles’ scout
Ray Scarborough signed John to play in the team’s farm
system.
“They called and said, ‘We
want you to sign’,” he recalled. “So, I said,
‘I’ll be right there.’ I had to borrow $15
from a neighbor to pay for a bus ride.”
Nowadays, there are 33 Major League
Baseball teams; back then, there were only 16, which made the
prospect of being called up to the big leagues a little more
daunting. John’s older brother “Buck” could
attest to that fact: he had previously played with the Braves
in the 1950s, making it as high as Double-A ball.
For the next six years, John took a swing
at his dream — reaching the level of Triple-A —
with some famous faces alongside him in the dugout, including
Cal Ripken, Sr., Jim Palmer, Dave McNally and Earl Weaver.
“I loved it,” John
said. “When you ride the yellow-back schoolbuses with 25
guys, you become very close with them. As it would be for any
young man who had the opportunity, it was the highlight of my
life.”
Of course, some highlights are more
memorable than others, like the first time John played first
base professionally in an Eastern League game.
“A big left-handed hitter came up
to the plate and David Leonard was on the mound,” he
recalled. “I saw Leonard give us the sign he was going to
change up on this guy and I thought, ‘Jesus, he’s
going to kill me.’ He eased up on him and that guy hit
the ball so hard that it almost took my arm and leg off. He got
on second base.”
Things got worse later in the game when
the same batter returned to the plate with runners on first and
second. “I was holding a guy on first and I saw Leonard
give me the sign that he was changing up on this guy
again,” John laughed. “He eased up on him and he
hit the ball down the line. It literally took my glove off.
They scored a run. People were going nuts. We finally got them
out and go back to the dugout and (Earl) Weaver won’t let
me in. He took a fungo bat and got my glove on top of the
dugout and starts beating the glove. Then, he throws me a
bucket. He figured I could do better with it.”
Every ballplayer commits errors now and
again, but John liked to make up for them in the batter’s
box. He had a good eye for the ball and hit for a consistent
average. Even still, superstitions always weighed heavily on
his mind.
“I was in Elmira, New York, playing
for Weaver. I was in a slump,” he noted. “So, I go
into the store on the way to the ballpark and get some chewing
tobacco. I saw some carrots in the produce department and
thought, ‘You know, they say carrots are good for the
eyes.’ So, I bought a carrot. I went to the ballpark that
night and got a base hit.”
Naturally, John repeated his routine the
next day, buying more tobacco and two carrots.
“I got two hits that night,”
he laughed. “I went back the next day, did the same
thing... bought three carrots. Three hits! I went back the next
day and bought four carrots and got four hits! I went the next
day and bought five carrots. Then, I went 0 for 4. I pushed the
limit. I had everybody in our ballpark eating carrots. I still
eat them to this day.”
In 1966, John retired from baseball not
long after recovering from a bad Achilles tendon injury and
being traded to the Braves. The organization still wanted to
keep him, however, so he was hired as the director of
operations for Fulton County Stadium.
Two years later, he was promoted to
director of sales and stayed with the Braves until 1975.
That year, the city of Atlanta hired him to be the general
manager of the city’s Convention and Visitors’
Bureau.
Meanwhile, John was interested in
starting his own ventures. He launched a company called Tickets
Unlimited that procured major event tickets for corporations.
He also opened a retail store downtown called Terminus.
“I put together the first store
that had all the sports memorabilia in town,” he said.
“I had stuff from the Hawks, Flames, Falcons, Braves,
Georgia Tech, Georgia and Road Atlanta.”
Also at the store, he gathered and sold
artisan artifacts from about 350 Georgia craftsmen, including
Xavier Roberts, the creator of Cabbage Patch dolls. John was
the first person ever to formally retail them in a store.
He kept plenty busy with other
enterprises, too. He owned a liquor store and had a production
company called Top Hand Productions that produced rodeos for
the Six Flags corporation. He even started a bleacher company
that rented out seating for events. All of the various
businesses were incorporated in 1975 under the title of John
Riddle & Associates.
“I didn’t have any particular
training on any of it,” John said. “Somebody asked
me one time — when I owned six companies — about
what motivated me. I said, ‘I’m not sure, but fear
is a great start’.”
Though he has worked on numerous trade
shows over the years — including the World of Concrete
and the National Association of Music Merchants, he initially
gained a good reputation with his work at the Atlanta
Convention Bureau. Since then, he has not had to ask for a
single job.
In 1981, Ward Gill of the Coin Laundry
Association wanted John to come and work the floor and help the
exhibitors at the Clean Show. Ten years later, he put in a bid
to manage it and has been running the show ever since.
Even to this day, he believes it is the
most challenging one he produces.
“You’ve got one industry all
together,” he explained. “There are a lot of
challenges dealing with that many players. Then, you have to go
and build a steam system.”
After first taking over the Clean Show,
Riddle & Associates increased exhibit space by 50 percent
and attendance by over 40 percent. Part of the reason for the
success is that John’s firm tries to make
exhibitors’ jobs as simple as possible.
“We put together a program for the
package plan,” he said. “When exhibitors buy space
from us, we take care of all of their labor requirements,
drayage, their air, water, steam, furniture, carpet —
whatever they do, and they don’t pay any more for
services related to the show aspect if they get their forms in
on time.”
“Other industries are trying to
figure out how we do that because 99.9 percent of all trade
shows are run on an ‘a la carte’ basis where they
sell you space for X number of dollars, then you have to go
contract with the general contractor for whatever carpet you
want, hire your own labor, you have to go pay a drayage rate.
These guys get nickel-and-dimed to death.”
John loves his job too much to
nickel-and-dime anybody to death. In fact, he sincerely hopes
no ill will befalls anyone who attends or exhibits at the show.
After all, there have been no major medical incidents at the
Clean Show under his watch — knock on wood — and he
plans to keep it that way.
“Hopefully we’re doing a good
job,” he said. “We’re giving it everything
we’ve got.”
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