Oil Company. He would help them figure out how to do whatever they needed. He said to me, that was ok, except that he worked for the telephone company. One day a client came into Frank’s office and asked him to build an answering service. He liked the concept and thought about doing the same thing for himself one day. Frank picked New Bruns- wick, NJ, making plans to build a house with a room for a switchboard. Then he took a vaca- tion to Florida with his kids. He never looked back, Florida was going to be his new home. N.J. Bell would not transfer him. They said if we transfer you then everybody would go. Before moving, a consent decree split up the monopoly phone company and allowed competition into the market. N.J. Bell’s biggest competitor was International Telecom and Telegraph (ITT). In 1968, Frank (age 34) got a job working for ITT of Florida, as the head of their Fort Lauderdale office. They hired him on the spot. He has a lot of charisma and all the skills they needed. Frank’s job was to close the sales. He sold large projects including Holy Cross Hospital. Then he sold five more hospi- tals. ITT paid him a salary plus commission. He made the top tier of his commission by the middle of the year. He told his boss to take the lid off the commissions to give him the incen- tive to keep selling. They wouldn’t so he had extra time on his hands and the money to purchase his switchboard. Ding-a-Ling answering service started while Frank was working for ITT. The name came from a conversation with his broth- er-in-law, who suggested, Ding-a-Ling. They laughed. It stuck. Frank’s assistant at NJ Bell, Lois Cornwall, also wanted to move to Florida. He hired her. Fifty years later she was still working at the company. Lois was the best of them all. Ding-a-Ling Answering Service started in 1971 in the dining room of the Brooks’ home. As soon as it opened a 24 hour a day vigil began. His wife couldn’t work all those hours. Lois filled in as needed. Lois was fantastic then and still is today. She always could do everything.
Frank and Carole Brooks
Meanwhile, Frank’s brother Joe went on his own career path as a criminal and ended up in jail. When he got out of prison Frank made him a partner in the answering service. He did it out of respect for his family. It didn’t take too long before Joe started to return to his old ways. Joe brought some guys from N.Y. who wanted to bury money in a business (money laundering). They tried to talk Frank into sell- ing the answering service. Frank didn’t want anything to do with that. Stephen Shooster - When I interviewed Frank Brooks after Herman was gone he told me, “With all of my business dealings I always appreciated how Herman Shooster was an honorable man. You could believe him. I didn’t have a lot of people I could trust. It seemed everyone could be bought. He couldn’t be bought. He and I had something going. I don’t know what it was, but we could sit down and talk to each other and level with each other. If I was in trouble he’d bail me out. He never asked me to sign this or sign that. If I needed money he would write a check. I would have done anything to help him. He ended up making a great successful business. He knew how to do things, but more importantly, he knew how to
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