COINMAN OF THE MONTH
NATHAN BUSH
Last month we received a letter asking that
Play Meter recognize the need service companies
fulfiU in our industry. The letter was from Nathan
E. Bush of Steed's in Garland, Texas, a suburb of
Dallas. We answered that we did indeed recognize
that and to prove it, we are featuring Mr. Bush as
Coinman of the Month for our July issue which is, in
fact, dedicated to service.
Both Bush and his partner at Steed's, Arthur
"Doyle" Modesto are rewtive newcomers to the
industry. Just over five years ago, Bush was
working for a CPA firm and Modesto was designing
for Texas Instruments. Then Bush brought a pool
haU, as a tax write-off. Soon he had decided to turn
it into a profitable investment, and when foosbaU
became popular in Dalls, he went into operating as
a fuU-time venture.
Meanwhile his partner-to-he had gone to work as
chief technician for Steed's' Furniture & Appliance,
which was conveniently next door to the pool haU.
From foosbaU operating, Bush went into games
operating in general, and of course he had service
problems. "One day, " he told us, "I talked Doyle
into fix,:ng one of my games, and he decided if we
could get mine fixed that easily, we could probably
get other people's fixed as weU. "The idea for Steed's
was born.
8
The service company didn't happen overnight,
however. At first it was strictly smaU time. "We
were fix,:ng a few games of our own, " Bush recalls,
"and a few games for friends. Then somebody
approached one of these friends with an Indy 800.
None of the distributors would work on it because
they hadn't sold it, and because it was a complicated
monstrosity compared to what was available then.
None of the independent people in town wanted to
work on it. The guy was sitting on a $10,000 Indy
800 machine and for two weeks he could not even
pay anybody to look at it. " Well, Bush and Modesto
decided they could look at the thing.
"So we looked at it, " Bush continued, "and we
thought, 'This is complicated, but it's not that
bad. ' " They offered to fix the machine, and they
did, "and that got us fuU-fledged into the business.
We fixed that Indy 800 and we had five other people
in Dallas caU us with Indy 800's to fix; the
distributors were referring people to us. It just
took off from there. "
Doyle provided the original electronics expertise.
Now Steed's has three technicians on a fuU-time
basis and experts, inclUding engineer J. LoweU
Kaywood, that consult on a part-time basis.
Bush is married. He and wife Ida have one son,
Kurt, 5 1 12 years old.