The people running Tootsie Roll are Ellen Rubin Gordon, (the daughter of William Rubin one of the Rubin brothers who took control of Tootsie Roll Industries in 1935) and her husband Melvin Gordon. Melvin was in his 80’s and Ellen in her 70’s and neither were looking to “rock the boat”. Tootsie Roll was a log-like piece of chocolate for over 100 years and they weren’t looking for anything new.

We went from Concord Confections, an environment that embraced creativity and anything new to a stogy, old fashioned company that had a 1950’s business sense. With all this in mind when Tootsie Roll announced that they were letting us go I wasn’t too broken up over it.

That is, until I realized that I’d be out of work once again.