Former valuevision exec dies
Gene McCaffery, the full of color senior manager who helped spin around ValueVision Media in the late 1990s, died unexpected final week after apropos unexpected ill. He was 62.
From 1998 by 2003, McCaffery served as authority as well as arch senior manager of Eden Prairie-based ValueVision as well as was instrumental in rebranding the company’s TV selling channel as well as website as ShopNBC.
When McCaffery took over the fledgling association, the batch was flagging as well as the during large touted partnership with the Philadelphia organisation had fizzled. Some questioned either ValueVision would survive.
The former Montgomery Ward senior manager sole off money-losing resources, dismissed management team, staid whinging lawsuit as well as — many importantly — lifted$ 220 million from investors NBC as well as GE Equity.
The company’s batch soared as the outcome, creation it the single of the tip performers between Minnesota publicly hold companies during the time.
Never the single to lift punches, the Bronx-born McCaffery favourite ring with reporters as well as revelation full of color tales. When asked how ValueVision management team came up with ideas for home-shopping network “shows, ” McCaffery joked, “We lay upon H2O beds as well as glance during the ceiling. We’re the water-bed brigade!”
In law, his career in sell occurred mostly by happenstance. While in attendance Hofstra University, he stocked shelves during S. Klein, the New York bonus dialect store which is right away defunct.
He was drafted in to the Army in 1968 as well as outlayed most of his debate in fight, autocratic an battalion crew as well as purloin association in Vietnam. He was liberated in 1971 as the initial major, as well as remained sexually committed to troops causes as well as charities via his life. He will be buried during Arlington National Cemetery.
McCaffery pronounced the skills he gained in the troops helped file his care style. “I schooled which we can’t only discuss it people what to do, ” he pronounced in the 1999 talk with the Star Tribune. “You have to get them to hold in what you’re doing.”
When asked afterwards if he ever envisioned streamer the association with the$ 1 billion marketplace capitalization, since his hardscrabble childhood, McCaffery replied, “Are we upon drug? “
After he left ValueVision, he went upon to offer upon multiform sell, grill as well as record association play, as well as was an confidant to the London-based investment firm. He confirmed homes in Minnetrista, Chicago as well as Malibu, Calif.
McCaffery is survived by his mother, Rebecca, as well as her 3 children. Services will be hold in Chicago as well as Minnesota. Details can be found during www.startribune.com/a117.
Janet Moore • 612-673-7752
