About Jack
What do you do at Lion Brand?
My title is Vice President. I do marketing and sales.
When did you start working for Lion Brand?
March 1, 1983. My father, George Blumenthal, was in charge of sales for the company from the 1950s to the 1980s.
What’s your favorite thing about working for Lion Brand?
My favorite thing is to have an idea, to discuss it in a meeting and then see it in a store 6 months or a year later.
What do you do when you are not working?
I collect sports memorabilia and autographs. When I travel and I’m in a hotel I can spot a professional athlete from across the room, and I’ve gotten a lot of autographs that way. I have an autographed Sandy Koufax jersey and a ball autographed by Koufax and Drysdale. I also coach my son’s basketball team and take him to little league games.
What is your work area like?
My work area is fun. I have a 1954 working Coke machine and a bubble gum machine from the ’50s, a collection of Norman Rockwell plates of people knitting, articles by my dad from a book he wrote the introduction to on knitting from 1953, a needlepoint made by my second grade teach showing Lion Brand on a pushcart, The Simpson family, sitting in front of the T.V. with Marge knitting. This was a cover of T. V. Guide. When I called them and told them I was in the yarn business they sent me the original artwork (called a cell). I have a tin that we used to give to stores in the 1950s, a photo of my son modeling a Lion Brand Sweater, a French poster of a girl knitting from 1928, a Red Cross poster from World War II that says, “our boys need socks, knit your bit”, a cover of Life Magazine from 1941 with a woman knitting (Life was 10 cents), a cover of New Yorker Magazine with a big ball of yarn, about 40 images of Lions counting stuffed animals, needlepoint, and framed images. A collection of books, some autographed, by Vanna White, Kate Jacobs and Debbie Macomber, all famous knitters or crocheters, a Build-A-Bear of a lion, a picture of Wallace and Grommet knitting, a poster of an old catalog cover that was a take-off of American Gothic with two lions knitting and crocheting, a clock with the Lion Brand logo, a framed 1946 Saturday Evening Post from with a picture of a dog sweater being knit. I have lots of photos including my father with Henry Kissinger, photos of me with Jackie Mason and Mohammed Ali, a picture of my Uncle Isidor, a picture of my parents in front of the Taj Mahal from 1971, a picture of Warren Buffet knitting (his daughter had a knit shop), color card books from the ’60s to the ’90s, and a license plate holder that says “license to knit”.
