Visconti: I was intrigued with
your background because
you’re not a Wharton guy or
a Princeton guy. How did that
happen?
PHOTO: S TEVE MELNICK
Chavel: I grew up in Detroit,
which is a very blue-collar town. If
you didn’t work in the automotive
business, you were in some sort of
service business. My father was in
the wholesale candy and tobacco
business, and that sounds like a
big business, but it was really just
a big warehouse that would service
smaller locations. When I watched
him get up at 5 in the morning and
not take any vacations, it really
started to mold me. People always
ask, “Where was your diversity
moment?” I don’t really remember. I’ve had so many of them. But
growing up in a really ethnic area,
growing up in a blue-collar sports
town, gave me the foundation—
and watching my father, who really
delivered that to the table.
Visconti: Your father’s parents
were immigrants?
Chavel: His parents came from
Greece. My father came when he
was 13. He went to Ellis Island. His
last name was Ponyitopolis and
they gave him the name Chavel.
He was either in front of or behind
a French gentleman, and he was
afraid to tell them that wasn’t his
last name because he was afraid
they wouldn’t let him into the
country. He got into the food business, a service business.
My high school was 70 percent
African American. I had come from
an environment that I was very
comfortable in. I was in an environment where I was a minority.
It was a very progressive neighborhood. Everyone just worked hard,
but they were very neighborly.
There were no issues of my parents
worrying about me walking to
school. I walked four miles. My
kids don’t believe it.
Visconti: So you came up
in the food-service industry, which is, again, serving
people. Tell me a little bit about
your career progression.
Chavel: I studied business and
economics and management in
college, probably because my father
was in business. In the back of
my mind, I thought, “Maybe I’ll
go into the family business.” My
brother did, my cousins did, but
I was the oddball who said, “Well,
maybe I’ll do something different.”
So my job after college was with
Arthur Andersen, a great company
back in the early ’80s. I was on the
consulting side, but I really liked
the opportunity to be involved in
diverse projects.
One year into working at Arthur
Andersen, my father decided to
retire and sell the business, so
there went my master plan of “If
this doesn’t work out, I might
have something to fall back on.”
