In the 1950's, Pete formed a marketing company called ARNOLD CLARK, INC. I was never sure how this name was chosen until Willie Ruff explained it in a January 3, 2011 interview. Apparently, the corporation Arnold Clark was an existing corporation (named for Joseph Arnold, d. 3/18/2010 & a Mr. Clark). They were looking for a buyer. Macgregor "Mac" Kilpatrick arranged for Peter Hodgson, Sr. to buy this existing corporation (which would be cheaper than starting a new corporation). Thus, Arnold Clark became a corporation under Pete's control. My father and Mac were also Vice Presidents of this company. Dad's Connecticut license plate read "ACVP".
My dad attended (and may have even graduated from) Stone Business College but he didn't have a marketing degree. That didn't stop him from dabbling in the experimental aspects of "marketing". One of my dad's favorite marketing experiments was to place a toy on top of the refrigerator and see how long it would take for us to ask to play with it. Then he would watch to see how long we would play with it. I'm not sure whether he marketed these toys or not, but some of the toys he experimented with were hula hoops, slinkys, yo-yos, and kites. It would have been hard to miss a hula hoop that was sitting on top of the fridge.
There were offices of Arnold Clark in Toronto, San Juan, and Germany. Mac told me that the offices, for the most part, were only manned by a sales representative.
