HSA 65th Anniversary Book

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SEPTEMBER 1, 1965–
AUGUST 31, 1966
Andy Tobias promotes
Let’s Go on the Today show
SEPTEMBER 1, 1966 –
AUGUST 31, 1967
A cash infusion leads
to rampant expansion
PRESIDENT
Charles
Filson
OFFICES
4 Holyoke St.
993A Mass. Ave.
After eight years of splitting his time
between the positions of Director
of Student Employment at Harvard
and General Manager of HSA,
Dusty Burke shifted his focus and
energy exclusively to HSA. President
Charles “Chip” Filson ’66 received
a Rhodes Scholarship and married
Mary Ann Ballmer, a former Charter
Flights employee, the following year.
Perhaps because of his exposure to
thousands of screaming football fans,
Barry Williams ’66, JD ’71, MBA
’71, manager of the Fall Concessions
agency, was elected First Marshal for
the Class of 1966.
Time magazine declared: “Shorter, hipper, and absolutely fresh is Let’s Go.” You know it. In this edition
could be found 260 pages of travel hipness, including new sections on “How to Buy Art in Europe” and
“Hitchhiking in Europe”: “Two girls can get rides safely and easily; so can a single boy. The ideal combination,
in hitchhiking as in life, is one girl and one boy. So if you are a girl, get another one to go with you. If you are
a boy, show this to some girl.”
Burke told the Let’s Go Business Manager, a greenhorn by the name of
Andrew Tobias ’68, MBA ’72, that he had to find a way to make Let’s Go
profitable or the travel guide would meet the axe. In February, Tobias appeared
on the Today show to promote the 50,000 copies that were out and available
by Christmas. The day after, the office was swamped with 180 orders for
books, $2 checks enclosed. Dozens of magazines and newspapers, including
Newsweek, Esquire, Mademoiselle, Seventeen, the London Times, the New York
Times, and the Christian Science Monitor, did features, reviews, and excerpts
on Let’s Go. HSA installed WATS lines to take orders and hired students to
staff a direct-call bookstore campaign. Sales grew by leaps and bounds.
Now-full-time General Manager Dusty Burke.
PRESIDENT
Frederick
Gruber
OFFICES
4 Holyoke St.
993A Mass. Ave.
After approaching a small number of alums and foundations,
HSA’s first capital campaign raised $51,000, was deemed
a success, and was discontinued. This extra money allowed
considerable expansion of several agencies. HSA found itself
able to hire John Merrill ’64, MBA ’70, who had managed
the business as a student, as a full-time manager for IGS.
Merrill more than doubled the agency’s sales, reaching nearly
$100,000 by the end of FY67, and had a retinue capable of
translating 35 different languages. In a fall exhibition game,
the Boston Patriots and Baltimore Colts did battle at Harvard
Stadium, and the Fall Concessions agency was there, helping
the exuberant fans consume 15,000 hot dogs in two and a half
hours.
With the aid of $2,000 in capital, the Entertainment agency
blazed back into the spotlight for a brief two-year stint of
mayhem. Expert in the field of psychedelic lighting, the agency
pushed the limits of consciousness and reality with more than
50 different mind-bending, brain-warping effects, including
one that projected old-time silent movies on weather balloons. With its squad of dancing go-go girls and
flotilla of musical acts, the agency could rock any party to the ground. The agency audaciously auditioned
four rock bands and 50 wannabe go-go girls in the law school dining hall during reading period. The lawyersto-be
did not rock out with glee. Clothed as gangsters and armed with plastic submachine guns, six agency
employees cruised Boston in a 1928 Packard promoting the movie The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Nobody
dared mess with the HSA gangstas in the Boston ’hood. Despite all the fun and hysteria, not enough cash
materialized, and the agency disbanded in 1968.
The sweat and toil of 70 editors and salesmen created a 1967 Let’s Go so excellent that it was pirated by the
Chou Cheng Publishing House in China and sold on the streets of Taipei for 60¢. Its 322 pages of delight
included new special sections on pubs and skiing in the French Alps as well as Italian, French, and Spanish
translations of such useful phrases as “Would you help me with my suntan oil?”, “Can I buy you a drink?”,
“What is your address?”, “Where can we be alone?”, “Scram, I’m not interested!”, “But I’m not like most
Americans!”, and “What a drag!” According to the business-reply reader-response cards inserted in the
books this year (whose results were used to sell ads), 36% of those who used the guide hitchhiked as a means
of transportation.
LET’S GO TITLES
LET’S GO TITLES
• The Student Guide to Europe
• The Student Guide to Europe
AGENCIES
AGENCIES
• Linen
• Let’s Go
• Catering
• Information Gathering
Service
• Charter Flights
• House Painting
• Fall Concessions
• Student Calendar
• Refrigerator Rental
• Europe by Car
• Rings
• Union News Stand
• Moving
• Summer Calendar
• Stationery
• Birthday Cake
• Fall Blotter
• Novelties
• Magazine
• Beer Mugs and Banners
• Newspaper
• Watson Rink
• Summer Blotter
• Addressing
and Mimeograph
• Spring Street Stadium
• Linen
• Let’s Go
• Catering
• Information Gathering
Service
• Charter Flights
• House Painting
• Fall Concessions
• Student Calendar
• Refrigerator Rental
• Europe by Car
• Rings
• Union News Stand
• Moving
• Summer Calendar
• Stationery
• Birthday Cake
• Fall Blotter
• Novelties
• Magazine
• Newspaper
• Watson Rink
• Summer Blotter
• Addressing
and Mimeograph
• Spring Street Stadium
• Entertainment
• Invention Research Group
18 HSA 65th Anniversary History Book 19