16 Sep Looking Back and Moving Forward. Click to keep reading…
As we all know, 2020 has been a challenging year in many ways. For the employees of Lupton Associates, the challenge began when we lost our founder, Al Lupton Sr., earlier this year. For those of you who didn’t know Al, or hadn’t had a chance to meet him, he was an unbelievable father, grandfather, friend and businessman.
Alan Morgan Lupton, founder of Alan Lupton Associates, Inc., was born in Corning, N.Y. on Jan. 22, 1939. He contracted polio at the age of five, losing the use of his right arm. He moved with his mother to Charlotte Street in Canandaigua, New York when he was in eighth grade. While walking past the tennis courts at Sonnenberg Gardens after being cut from the basketball team, he decided tennis was a sport that he could play competitively despite his disability. He often woke up early and practiced by himself using a wood backboard. His hard work and dedication paid off!! Al enrolled at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), after a successful junior tennis campaign. He was a starting player at Canandaigua Academy, a Section Five champion, and was runner up in the Rochester Junior WNY Championship in 1957. During his career at RIT, he posted a 22-3 singles record in four seasons. His accomplishments on the tennis court culminated in his induction in the athletic hall of fame at both the Canandaigua Academy and Rochester Institute of Technology.
After graduating from RIT, Al began working in manufacturing and later joined the procurement group at Xerox Corporation where he worked for many years. In 1969, he founded a manufacturers’ representative organization, Lupton Associates. Recently celebrating its 50th anniversary, Lupton Associates helps manufacturers throughout the United States win significant contracts that create thousands of jobs and positively impacts the lives of people all over the world. Al was a visionary who wasn’t satisfied with just providing for his own family. He wanted to have a multi-person rep agency that covered a large geographical area, not just upstate New York.
Today we are a ten person sales organization that covers the Eastern seaboard of the continental United States and portions of the Western Rockies. Last year we generated over $170 million in sales for the companies we represent. We now have our own marketing / branding department and a monthly newsletter that reaches thousands. Our impact is far reaching and our customers include John Deere, Textron, Ingersoll-Rand, Club Car, Carrier, Otis, Siemens, Johnson & Johnson, Smiths Medical, Kubota, Generac, Caterpillar, Xerox, ViaSat, IBM, and many more.
Even more important, Al was a devoted husband and father. He met his wife Denise, of Brussels, Belgium, in 1962. Married for 56 years, they raised four children. His son – Alan Lupton II, is our current President. Al instilled in those around him that life is a journey not a destination.
He encouraged us to:
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
~ John Wesley
Al Lupton Sr. WAS a class act and he treated others the way he wanted to be treated. In my 22 years with the company, I never heard one person utter ANYTHING disparaging or negative against Al. A few comments from his obituary:
20+ years of golf, not one curse word, remarkable! I’ll miss him.–John Ford
Always a Gentleman, Always Humble, and treated everyone with respect.–Tony DelVecchio
He was a true gentleman and I am SO THANKFUL for the time I was able to spend with him early in my career. My family will FOREVER be grateful for the opportunity Al Sr, Alan (his son & our President), Graham (our former Vice-President), and Lupton Associates provided me back in 1998. What a blessing to work for a company that treats you like family!! Al Lupton Sr.’s example will guide us as we enter into our next 50 years.–Commentary provided by John Walker, Business Development Professional
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