Text from: Bottler brings business say to board
There are remarkable similarities between the hospital industry and the soft drink bottling industry. Robert Zetzmann’s involvement with both has had uncanny parallels, too.”Competitive” is the last word he would have used to describe Southern Baptist Hospital or the health care industry when Zetzmann became a board member in 1969.
Now the word is sprinkled throughout his conversation. He has seen the transition from a staid, traditional hospital, which was one of the last in the country to become “affiliated with the government in the Medicare business,”to a progressive, sophisticated institution that “comes in first or secondamong New Orleans area hospitals on the surveys we’ve done.”
He has seen a similar metamorphosis in Zetz Seven-Up Bottling Co., Inc., the business founded by his father. “When I came to workhere, we had eight packages, now we have 78. We have added 21 packages in the last year, and we will add eight more in the next six weeks. The biggest rage is juice based products:’ he says.
“My father died in 1962. Since then my brother and I have been managing the company. When I think I was 32 years old, it kind ofscares me a little bit:’ Under their guidance, the company has become the eighth largest Seven-Up bottler in the nation, and they each have two sons carrying on the tradition.
Just as the years of learning every phase of the family business prepared Zetzmann to be president of the company, the “quiet” years on the board prepared him to be president in 1983 and ’84, when Project 2000 had just begun. “We have to be extremely versatile:’ Zetzmann says. “It is hard to establish a plan for any length of time because competitive pressures make you change your strategy. I guess that is the way the hospital business is; I see a good analogy:’
When Zetzmann the board member says, “We have a great product to market, and I think we will be doing that aggressively” he is talking about the hospital. But as he sits in the tastefully decorated office with his father’s picture in a place of honor, it is clear he believes thesame about the soft drink bottling business.