It’s a sunny morning in October. In his Dublin office, Rusty McClure leans back in a chair with crossed arms, his face lively and his eyes bright. The Cincinnati native and current Dublin resident is telling a story – an act he relishes – and he digs into this tale with particular gusto. He talks about two entrepreneurial brothers from Cincinnati, Lewis and Powel Crosley, who made national waves in the 1930s and ‘40s. The brothers manufactured refrigerators, started up radio stations and developed the idea for the first night baseball game.
The most interesting part of the story? The 59-year-old is the grandson and great-nephew of Lewis and Powel, respectively, and is a successful entrepreneur, as well.
The Crosleys were celebrities in Cincinnati. Their family name graced Crosley Field (former home of the Cincinnati Reds) and dozens of other products and appliances. They also owned the Crosley Broadcast Corporation and its radio station WLW. The pioneering station could be heard over much of the eastern United States in its heyday.
McClure embraces his background with pride. His office space contains relics from his family’s past, such as seats from Crosley Field (it was demolished in 1972) and a Crosley radio.
McClure has followed a path similar to the Crosley brothers. Like them, he’s a self-made man. As a teenager, his grandfather Lewis, whom McClure considered a father figure, told him he would have to make his own success in life.
“He said he watched money ruin too many of his family members and too many other people’s family members. He said, ‘You are capable of doing things on your own, and I’m going to encourage you and require you to do that,’” McClure says. “I saluted him for that. He was this guy I really admired. It was something he did to me and for me at the same time.”
Today McClure is an entrepreneur in his own right, with multiple titles and degrees to his name. He was company president and CEO for The Brown Publishing Co. in Ohio at 26 years old, and at 33 became the owner and CEO of the national company Famous Sportswear. He also has a master’s degree of divinity from Emory University and an MBA from Harvard (where he was classmates with former president George W. Bush).
“I’ve always had this motor in me that just runs. I’m just one of those people,” McClure says. “I don’t know that you can really put me in a category except entrepreneur. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Combine that with the personality trait that I hate authority. I grew up in the ‘60s. We all hated authority then.”
McClure’s most recent business endeavor, however, harnesses his passion for storytelling. In 2006, he and co-writers David Stern and Michael A. Banks published Crosley, a biography of Lewis and Powell Crosley. They put the book together from McClure’s own memories and information from his mother, Ellen Crosley McClure, who is 86 and still lives in Cincinnati.
So far the book has sold more than 100,000 copies and earned McClure and company a spot on The New York Times Bestsellers List for five weeks. On the Dec. 31, 2006 list, Crosley shared space with high-profile books by the likes of U2, Denzel Washington and President Barack Obama.
According to McClure, his wife Amy was the first person to suggest a book about the Crosley brothers.
“My grandfather told me the stories of Crosley, and he met (Amy) when were 19 years old,” he says. “He told these great stories, and my wife says, ‘There’s a book here.’ I always kind of had it in the back of my head, but she was the first person to ever articulate it.”
Publishing Crosley encouraged McClure to write two more books. Cincinnatus: The Secret Plot to Save America, which was also co-written with Stern, went on sale Nov. 1. McClure describes the book as a combination of real people and places – including Lewis and Powell Crosley – and a fictional plot. Early reader reviews described it as historical fiction akin to the works of Dan Brown, who authored The Da Vinci Code. A biography co-written by Jack Heffron, Coral Castle: The Mystery of Ed Leedskalnin and his American Stonehenge, also came out in the fall.
McClure says entering the publishing world has been a new and exciting departure from his previous business efforts, although they all spring from the same well of enthusiasm.
“Five years from now I’ll say, ‘Hey, I did it,’” McClure says. “I think there’s a lot to be said for people who do what I do. We would prefer to try and fail than not try and be whimpering later that we should have. When you go and do (something) yourself and you start putting more time in it than is rationally justified, it is called passion. Passion doesn’t answer to some formula. You don’t do it for the money. You do it because it’s just what you do.”
In addition to other business plans he has yet to visit, McClure says he will continue teaching a spring entrepreneur class at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he received his bachelor’s degree. McClure says he isn’t sure if he has more stories left to write, although it’s certain he has plenty left to tell.
“I never set out to be a writer,” he says. “I think I’m more of a storyteller than a writer. I love stories. I tell my students, if you teach me a fact, I will learn it. If you teach me a truth, I’ll believe it. But if you tell me a story, it will live in my heart forever.”
Kate Seegraves is editor of Dublin Life.
BONUS:
For more information about McClure’s books, visit the following Web sites:
Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire That Transformed the Nation
www.crosleybook.com
Coral Castle: The Mystery of Ed Leedskalnin and his American Stonehenge
www.coralcastlebookc.om
Cincinnatus: The Secret Plot to Save America
www.cincinnatusbook.com