From pre-Revolutionary America through civil and world wars, as well as economic ups and downs, the Freeman family has been there. Legh Freeman, a peripatetic journalist and Civil War veteran, chronicled the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. His son Miller was a trade-magazine publisher and a civic leader. He became a key figure in building the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the I-90 floating bridge, and the subsequent development of the east side of Lake Washington. Miller's son Kemper developed Bellevue Square out of a strawberry field and became a pioneer in the shopping center industry.
Biographer Robert Spector's interest was in Kemper Freeman Jr., who witnessed the evolution of Bellevue from rural to suburban to urban and has had a profound impact on virtually every aspect - retail, culture, transportation, land use, and philanthropy - of his beloved city.
Robert Spector is recognized worldwide as the ultimate authority on The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence. His best-selling business classic The Nordstrom Way: The Inside Story of America's #1 Customer Service Company is the first and only up-close and personal look at how this company became the national standard of customer service. BusinessWeek said it "bubbles with customer service insights."
In March 2012, there will be a completely new edition of the book: The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence: How to Become the Nordstrom of Your Industry. Advance copies can be purchased today.
Robert has been involved in customer service since the age of 13, when he first went to work in his mother and father's butcher shop in the farmers' market in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Working alongside his parents, he learned firsthand what it takes to take care of customers--and to keep them loyal. Those lessons inspired his latest book, The Mom & Pop Store, which features interviews with successful independent retailers from all over the world. Robert believes that the elements of world-class customer service are the same, whether they come from Spector's Meat Market, Nordstrom, or Amazon.com, the subject of his international bestseller Amazon.com: Get Big Fast.
Robert has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, among others. When he is not speaking, training and consulting internationally about customer service, he lives in Seattle.
