Piacere

Tom Golisano

Tom Golisano is an entrepreneur, businessman, philanthropist, and author. In 1971, he founded Paychex, a company that provides payroll and human resources services to businesses. He was also the owner of the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League and is credited with keeping them in Buffalo. Tom has created New York State’s Independence Party and has run for Governor of New York on three separate occasions. His philanthropic projects have included funding hospitals, university buildings, and the Special Olympics, to which he gave the greatest individual contribution that the organization has received.

Both sides of Tom’s family emigrated from Sicily. He was born and raised in Irondequoit, a suburb of Rochester, New York. He currently splits time between Upstate New York and Florida with his wife, former professional tennis star Monica Seles.

Tell us about your grandfather’s work in the sulfur mines of Sicily.

My father’s father was working in the sulfur mines near Caltanissetta, and he got killed in a mine cave-in several months before my father was born. So my father never knew his father. The work had a very high mortality rate, not only from accidents but also for health reasons. It was so hot in the sulfur mines that they didn’t even wear clothes when they worked.

In your memoir, it’s clear that you have extraordinary admiration for your older sister, Marie. What aspect of her character did you admire most?

When she was 15, she had her own catastrophe in which she lost her right hand. She’s 93 today, and you can hardly tell that she has a disability of any type, the way she handles it and the way she uses her prosthesis. She’s such an inspiration to everybody; she’s always upbeat. And most importantly, in my situation, when I really needed help from her financially, she was there for me. It wasn’t the best of circumstances. Not only did she have that accident, but she also had three children, and her husband had died of a heart attack at 41. She was a widow with three kids and $41,000 of insurance money in the bank. She said, “Take what you want.”

How much pride do you take in challenging the status quo and shaking up an industry, the way you did when you founded Paychex?

Initially, not that much. When I started Paychex, I did not have any idea that I was going to turn over an industry. I just thought there was a small market niche out there that everybody in the payroll processing business was ignoring at the time. So I looked at it as an opportunity to make a living. It took me four years to get to a point where I could feed my family. But it was not my goal to upturn an industry.

Tom Golisano’s memoir The Italian Kid Did It! is now available. What is one lesson you’ve learned about the importance of telling the truth?

I’ll tell you one thing I did when I was kid. I got a call from a friend of mine one day who said there was this carnival going on at a Catholic school and they needed people to work the hot dog stand. And I said, “Well what’s exciting about that?” And he said that sometimes you don’t have to put the money in the till. He talked me into going over and working, and I fell victim to the pressure and put a few bucks in my pocket that I shouldn’t have. I lived with that for the longest time until seven or eight years ago when I sent a check to the school for $1,000. Having that in the back of my mind, I always found it best to be as honest as possible because if you aren’t, it usually comes back to haunt you.

The world knows how well your wife, Monica, swings a tennis racquet. But how well do you fare with one?

I have a confession to make. Monica and I used to play quite a bit, and we’d play singles. Of course, I would not have a chance against her if we did not adapt some new rules. Here were the rules: I could hit to the entire doubles court, and she could only hit to half the singles court. And that way I was able to be competitive.

Leave us with some words to live by.

I believe today, in our environment, there are new frontiers that there’s so much opportunity for people to have successful business lives. If I was a young person, the last thing I’d want to do today is get discouraged about business opportunities or ways to make a living. The opportunities out there are fantastic.