PPB March 2021

what it specializes in today as a manufacturer of custom-made watches and watch faces. But the company didn’t start out specializing in watches, neither was its early focus on producing and customizing promotional products. In Selco’s early days, the business was based in Oklahoma City, which is where Abels’s grandfather settled when he came to America from Poland. Abels’s great granduncle owned a jewelry store at the time in Fort Worth, Texas, and he helped Abels’s grandfather open a store in Oklahoma in 1935, which grew into a chain of fine jewelry stores. During the stores’ first 15 years, some of the most frequently requested items included customized crystal, jewelry and watches for companies to use in recognition programs, which led to the formation of the custom division. “I don’t think any of it was very formal, but in the late ’50s, they created a division called Selco Incentive and tried to formalize the process,” says Abels. When Abels’s father joined the company in 1962, the custom division was renamed Motivation, Inc., and by 1965, it started focusing more on watches. And when the elder Abels, who is currently the chairman of the board for Selco, took over in 1976, he entirely restructured Selco’s operations. By 1980, he had sold all of the retail jewelry locations, which included about 59 stores and salons, to national jewelry retailer Zales. The company had also moved to Tulsa, quickly downsized from 400 employees to eight, and also began focusing on clocks in addition to watches. For the next 30 years, Abels says, Selco operated as a manufacturer of clocks and watches. The risks taken by Abels’s father were steep, but they paid off. By the mid- 1980s, Abels says the company was growing at an annual rate of 25 to 30 percent. “I think there were a lot of things going on, from the watch niche that, really, in 1980 didn’t have any competition, versus the competition we had in jewelry stores,” says Abels. “The stores were spread out across 15 states and dealing with mall owners and rent, and malls were consolidating and becoming more powerful. Just looking at the opportunity of focusing on watches, we saw our future. The promotional products industry was (above) A photo from before Mark Abels joined the company, taken during an awards weekend and banquet for top salespeople called The Order of the Selco Crest. From left: Lee Segell, Janice Segell, Eunice Seligson (Mark's grandmother), Jack Seligson (Mark's grandfather and the founder of Selco, formerly Seligson Company), and Mark's parents, Felice and Larry Abels. (right) Mark Abels (far right), participates in a fundraiser for The Bridges Foundation, an organization Selco supports. “ There’s knowledge in the room and you can learn a lot fromit. I think that’s probablywhere I started to figure it all out. Youdon’t have to be an expert to do any of this.” —Mark Abels, MAS | MARCH 2021 | 61 THINK