Coinman of the Month
Gary Stern
Gary Stern is in the very st"ngular position of
heading the only U.S. company that manufactures
coin-op pinballs, videos, and phonographs [and, for
that matter, shuffle alleys, too]. So PLAY METER
felt that someone like Mm, who wears so many
different hats, would be able to offer a rather
sweeping view of the whole coin-op business in this
our "State of the Industry" issue. After all, as a
manufacturer, he's looking at the industry from all
Stdes.
And Gary didn't let us down in that regard. His
remarks in the following exclusive interview touched
on the strengths and weaknesses, the demands and
challenges to a manufacturer of each of those various
macht"ne types. His thoughts, however, were not
restricted to the manufacturing arena. A lawyer by
profession, Gary also offered some insight into an area
of serious legal consequences to the entire industry.
And he is also outspoken as far as the need for
operators to increase their pricing structures to keep
pace with the higher priced equipment which he, as a
manufacturer, can only see going higher and higher.
Certru,"nly his views mark him as a realist, but as his
accomplishments attest to, that doesn't seem too
confining for Mm. For instance, the fact that he would
start a pinball company in 1976 when the flipper
market appeared sewed up by the Big Three-Bally,
Gottlieb, and Williams-seems to show he has a
special t"nsight into this industry and an ability to
recognize what is real and what is myth. When Stern
8
Electronics burst onto the scene a few years back,
there were a great many head-shakers in the industry
who didn't think the privately owned company could
compete with the Big Three. But, now when anyone in
this industry talks about the major pinball companies,
tern Electronics is always included.
Gary was born in 1945 in Philadelphia. His father,
Sam Stern [and a Coinman Mmself just two years
ago], was an operator and distributor in the Phil-
adelphia area. The Stern family moved to Chicago
where Sam Stern purchased Williams Electronics.
Gary grew up in Chicago, then went south to Tulane
University in New Orleans for his degree in Business
and Accounting. Returning to Chicago, he went to law
school and was graduated t"n 1971. He practiced law for
a few years before joint"ng Williams in 1973 to help his
father run the company.
They both left Williams in the spring of 1976 and at
the very end of that year formed Stern Electrcmics out
of the ashes of Chicago Coin. The company has
achieved most of its recent success, of course, on its
pinball machines and shuffle alleys and has now added
on a video game line. Recently it acquired the See burg
phonograph line which itself was struggling through a
Chapter 11 reorganization.
Gary was married recently, May 10, to Denise
Masef, a former 1W A airlt"ne employee from
Birmingham, Alabama. He is on the board of directors
of the National Jewish Hospital and National Asthma
Center in Denver and is active in several other civic
organizations.
PLAY METER, November, 1980