"When I was 13, in the summer of 1958, I got my first job selling fruits and vegetables from the back of a truck. My mother helped me get the job-she knew the owner of the vegetable truck because he regularly drove through our neighborhood in Staten Island, N.Y., selling vegetables to all the little old Italian women.

"The job started early. I'd have to be up by about 4:30 in the morning. I'd hop on my bike and ride over to the truck owner's house. We met there and then went to the fruit and vegetable market and loaded the truck for the day. The boxes of fruits and vegetables were stacked on the truck, which had an open and angled bed, so that the women in the neighborhoods could easily see the selection. We'd drive through the neighborhoods and the women would come out of their homes and place their orders. We even had a scale hanging from the back of the truck to weigh their purchases.

"It was my job to scamper to the top of the truck to retrieve the hard-to-reach fruits and vegetables and then to bag them and carry them home for the women. Sometimes I'd get a 10-cent tip, and if I was especially helpful and polite it might be 25 cents.

"It taught me from a very early age the value of having good personal and social skills, but also the value of hard work. The job sounded like a lot of fun-just riding around on a truck all day, I thought. But what I quickly learned was that it took a lot of work to get that truck ready for business every day. I learned the value of salesmanship. When the women would ask for a pound of string beans, I'd point out that we also had corn on sale, or I'd ask if maybe they were running low on potatoes.

"I learned that it takes more than a smile to have a successful business. It takes a lot of hard work and preparation to be good at what you do."

-Interviewed by Kelley Kaminsky