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Who's who: Bill Dunn

A clerk's job at 7-Eleven is a first step on the career ladder for most folks -- or a spot they hit on the slide down. Bill Dunn, Tranax's director of sales, traversed the ladder in unexpected directions and still ended up on top.

March 23, 2004

A clerk's job at 7-Eleven is a first step on the career ladder for most folks -- or a spot they hit on the slide down.

Not Bill Dunn. Tranax's director of  sales traversed the ladder in unexpected directions -- and still ended up on top.

Bill Dunn

"I did it as a fluke, but I ended up liking it," said Dunn, who worked a series of hotshot sales jobs -- including a stint negotiating tire contracts for a Saudi businessman -- before going behind the counter for the c-store chain.

Dunn wanted to be an architect when he enrolled at Texas Tech University. However, his academic adviser told him he had no artistic talent and advised a switch to business. Dunn listened to his adviser's recommendation, but he continued taking art classes.

Flunked draft dodging

He was in the midst of a master's degree in marketing when he was "caught taking four hours of pottery," he said. The unnecessary academics earned him a spot before the draft board and a ticket to Vietnam in 1967.

Dunn said he was "lucky" to be stationed in a unit that spent most of its time patrolling the mountains for guerilla activity rather than on the front lines. "We were so bad they even took our ammunition away for a while."

When he went home, Dunn briefly worked as a management trainee for Sears Roebuck and Co. before switching to Michelin; he became a sales star for the French company that was just entering the United States market. Dunn moved nine times in eight years, living all over the country, for Michelin.

The grueling schedule took a toll on his 10-year-old marriage. The union ended after he left Michelin for a business opportunity that required him to spend three months at a time in Saudi Arabia.

Super dad

The divorce drove Dunn to 7-Eleven. He signed on for the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift, which allowed him to make the drive from Dallas to Arlington, Texas, several times a week to coach son Wes' baseball team.

"I knew I needed to be there for (Wes) or I'd lose him," Dunn said.

Selfless support was a hallmark of Dunn's parenting style, said the younger Dunn. "When I was a senior in high school, I thought I wanted to be a stockbroker. Dad cashed out some of his stocks and gave the money to me, so I could invest it, get my feet wet and see if I really liked it."

Dunn nudged Wes, now a sales rep for Core Data Resources, toward the ATM industry, encouraging him to take a job working for Affiliated Computer Services (ACS). At the time, the transaction processor was struggling with customer service issues.

"I told him if he could survive a year there, he could write his own ticket," Dunn said. "It would be a great place to learn to return phone calls and talk to customers. The advantage to working for a company that's having problems is that you get an opportunity to make it better, no matter what you do."

His father's reputation helped pave the way for him, said the younger Dunn. "I inherited half of his friends and all of his enemies in the ATM business, which has worked out great."

In the zone

Dunn worked in an area near downtown Dallas called the "combat zone" for 7-Eleven -- but he experienced fewer problems than some of his coworkers.

"I never got robbed because I was the only non-Vietnamese guy working there, and (the criminals) knew I'd be able to describe them to police" he said. "They'd stick their heads in the door, see I was working, leave and come back later to rob the place."

His sales savvy earned him a quick promotion to assistant manager, then store manager and finally a supervisor responsible for eight stores. He convinced his zone manager to lay in a large supply of Garbage Pail kids right before the novelty trading card/candy combo's popularity took off. His store led the nation in condom sales when Dunn created a counter display for them.

Southland Corporation, 7-Eleven's owner, asked him to coach a softball team. He met some employees of Tidel Technologies, then a division of Southland, while coaching. "I beat the crap out of them in softball," he said.

He transferred to Tidel in 1985 "in an effort to get out of the c-store environment before getting shot, mugged or otherwise permanently disabled through body abuse."

After Dunn took over international sales for Tidel, whose primary product was the TACC (timed access cash controller) safe, those sales grew to 25 percent of Tidel's total. "It was a real good gig. At the time, I was single and traveling like a rock star," he said.

Enter the ATM

In 1989, Dunn remembered, Jim Stewart of ACS shared a vision of connecting Tidel's TACC to a point-of-sale terminal to create a rudimentary cash dispenser.

"I thought he was nuts," Dunn said. "I wanted to sell safes, not a poor man's ATM."

Wiser heads at Tidel prevailed, and the company introduced its first dial-up ATM, with software written by ACS, in 1992. At about the same time, Dunn recalled, Triton was working on a similar concept with Lynk Systems.

After helping establish the market for retail ATMs, Dunn was lured to Wincor Nixdorf in 1998 with a promise that he could help the manufacturer design a new ATM for the retail market. Unfortunately, he said, "Instead of building a $5,000 machine, I ended up trying to compete with a $10,000 machine."

Bill Dunn clowns with members of the Metroplex Ski Club of Dallas/Fort Worth.

Dunn met Hansup Kwon, president of Tranax Technologies, at a trade show. The men developed an easy camaraderie, and Kwon began calling Dunn -- who by that time was focusing on the bank rather than the retail market for Wincor -- for advice. When Kwon offered him a job in 1999, Dunn took it.

"I missed the trench warfare of the off-premise market," he said.

Making a splash

Dunn works off the stress of the trenches behind a microphone as an announcer for the Metroplex Ski Club of Dallas/Fort Worth, showcasing his wacky sense of humor for crowds attending water skiing exhibitions and competitions.

"It's fun, but it's a challenge too," he said. "When something goes wrong on the water, I have to divert the attention of the crowd from the water to me."

He continues to dabble in the arts, primarily by painting and playing the guitar -- both badly, he says. His most memorable guitar performance came in his 7-Eleven days, when he performed an original composition called "Mohammed the Third Shift Thief" during a zone meeting attended by some 200 people.

"The human resources people are sill talking about it," he said.

As for the future, Dunn related that Kwon recently changed his opinion that Dunn shouldn't work past the age of 70, telling him he was welcome at Tranax, "as long as he wasn't feeble."

"I don't know if I'll ever retire," Dunn said. "I'll probably drop dead behind a desk."