`Leech and Garner consulting retainer`

Tom's first major industrial consulting engagement, 1978. $5,000/year retainer at the time of his $20,000 MIT salary. Required by his bank for the Belmont house purchase ($85K then, >$1M now). Leach and Garner (Attleboro MA, founded 1899) ran two continuous casters for two-inch-diameter karat gold round when most steel mills had none.

I started on the faculty in 1976; in 1978 I bought a house. I still live in Belmont. At that time it was three bedrooms and one and a half baths; it's now eight bedrooms and four and a half baths. Same six-tenths-acre plot — but I had seven children. My wife thought all the children should have their own bedroom, so we added on. To buy that house I had gotten a consulting job with a company down in Attleboro, Massachusetts called Leach and Garner. They put me on a $5,000-a-year retainer. My salary as a faculty member at that time was probably about $20,000 a year, so this was a big deal. The bank made me get a letter from Mr. Leach and Mr. Garner saying I had a retainer of $5,000 a year, because if I'm making $20,000, I couldn't afford an $85,000 house. About two years ago I found that letter in my old files. Now that house is worth over a million dollars. People say, oh, you bought a house for $85,000 in Belmont. Well, yeah, but the year before it sold for 70.