Five days after I got back from Israel, my phone rang. “I heard you worked for Ben Gasner. I’d like to meet you.”
“Worked” was being generous. I was an apprentice, fresh out of design school and still very green.
That night I sat across from Nutti (Joe) Goldbrenner in his Monsey, NY home study. My zippered portfolio was open on his desk- my college projects, a lot of effort, and not much real world proof yet. I watched his face as he turned each page.
He was quiet for a long minute. Then he looked up and offered me a job on the spot. $300 a week. My first real job.
I walked out thrilled.
A little shaken too.
Those first months I didn’t have a car, and Nutti was kind enough to give me a ride to work. On those rides he called his father every day to check in. I do that now with my mother. I learned care by watching him.
January 2025; with Nutti Goldbrenner and his wife Brenda, the people behind my first real chance.
As I grew, he gave me more responsibility. A jewelry catalog landed on my desk, mine to design alone. I remember staring at that blank page thinking- how do I make this worthy of the trust he just gave me?
And here’s what “get inspired” meant 25 years ago-
No endless internet ideas. If you needed fuel, you didn’t open a browser- you opened a book.
So I joined a book club that mailed catalogs every month. I’d order, wait for boxes, and stack my cubicle into a little library just to stay ahead.
One day Nutti stepped into my cubicle, scanned the shelves and asked-
“Where did you get all these books?”
“I bought them,” I said. I wanted them to be mine.
“Bring the receipts to Yanky in finance,” he said.
“We’ll reimburse you, and the books stay yours.”
That week I got a check for $3,200.
Back when inspiration came in boxes, these books were my lifeline. (Early studio years)
My starting salary was $300 a week. And every time I leveled up, Nutti leveled me up too, before I ever had to ask.
Five years later I got engaged and was moving to Baltimore. I went into Nutti’s office to talk about my next job.
He looked me in the eye and said, “Go out on your own.”
It wasn’t even an option I’d considered.
But from him, it felt like permission.
That was Nutti all the way through.
He didn’t just teach me design.
He taught me how to be a professional.
He invested in my becoming, even when becoming meant leaving.
PS. What’s one moment when you had to let go?
Belief is a leadership strategy.
Invest in someone before the results are obvious, and you don’t just change their career, you shape the leader they become.
This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for the man who saw potential in a very raw kid with a zippered portfolio, and treated that potential like it was already real.
Who saw you early, before it was obvious? And who are you seeing right now?
