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Packy Nespeca (second from left) at the NACDS Leadership Dinner in 2013 with Mark Griffin of Lewis Drug, Larry Merlo of CVS Caremark, Tony Civello of Kerr Drug, and Paul McGarty of Lupin Pharmaceuticals.
As almost everybody knows by now, Packy Nespeca passed away, at age 100, in early October. To once again restate (and paraphrase) the age-old cliché: To those who knew Packy, no explanation is necessary; to those who did not, no explanation is possible.
Rather than once again recall Packy’s adventuresome and highly accomplished life, we thought we would rerun a part of a March 2021 editorial — written just before that year’s virtual NACDS Annual Meeting — which says all that can be said about this remarkable human being and his exemplary life.
And speaking of special individuals, one such name invariably comes to mind at this special time of year. Certainly, chain drug retailing does not lack for icons or legends or retailers and suppliers who are now busy forging a legend that future Annual Meeting-goers will ultimately recall fondly — or not so …
Against that backdrop, this space will devote itself to one such legend, a man who, over the course of a long lifetime, perhaps influenced more chain drug store workers than anyone before or since.
Is there anyone among us who can’t recall or remember a Packy story, one that never fails to bring a smile or a tear — or both. After all, that’s Packy’s way — and always has been. Indeed, stories abound. There’s the one that turns on the annual skiing trip Packy organized and supervised for American Greetings, the company that will forever be linked with Packy.
Seems that one year he invited a retailer who, after the invitations went out, changed greeting card suppliers, moving from AG to Hallmark. When Packy called to inquire whether the individual would attend the outing, he replied this way: “Don’t you know, Packy, I’m no longer an American Greetings account. I’ve switched to Hallmark.” Responded Packy: “Oh yes, I’ve heard. My question is this: Will you be joining us for the ski outing?”
That’s Packy. With whom It’s always been about the individual, never about business. Well, almost never. I have my own memories. One time, at a Cleveland Browns football game — the Browns had just returned to Cleveland after previously decamping to Baltimore — to which American Greetings invited me, Packy asked if I’d like to meet John Glenn, former astronaut and, at that time, U.S. senator. I readily agreed, whereupon Packy brought me to the senator’s suite. Most people would have introduced us by saying, “Excuse me, Senator, but I have a friend here who would like to meet you.” Not Packy. He approached Glenn and announced that he was about to give the senator the opportunity to meet his dear friend David Pinto.
That’s Packy as well.
Indeed, the Packy Nespeca story is one of a life well lived. He was always doing someone a small kindness, going out of his way, often for a stranger, with no obvious opportunity for a payback. For Packy, as well as the memorable character in that Tennessee Williams play, has always depended on the kindness of strangers.
To end this with yet another Packy story, there was the time, at an industry event, when Packy, sitting on the dais next to Brooklyn Dodger great Duke Snider, sought me out (I was at a table about three miles from the dais) to ask whether I’d like to meet the Duke of Flatbush. Being a big baseball (Yankees) dean, I easily agreed. Packy introduced us, and the Duke was gracious throughout our interview until I — remembering that he never signed autographs when I was a kid — did what any 55-year-old baseball fan would do. I asked him why not. He answered honestly, as he would to any 55-year-old kid. “You damn kids,” he said, “you would never leave me alone.”
Both Packy and I laughed — when we were safely out of the Duke’s earshot.
