Pilot Pen CEO Ron Shaw Tells Readers How to Get Ahead in Business

"PILOT YOUR LIFE How to Create the Career You Want"
From Blue-Collar Paper Boy to Comedian to CEO of Pilot Pen, Shaw Shares Lessons Learned on the Long, Hard Climb to Success
Savvy, Risk-Taker Built Pilot Pen of America from $1 Million to $200 Million in Sales

New York, NY and Trumbull, CT -- Ron Shaw believes that there is one essential element common to all successful people. It’s not an apprenticeship with Donald Trump, an MBA or insider connections. It’s recognizing that you don’t need someone to give you permission to pursue the life you want. In Pilot Your Life: How to Create the Career You Want (with Richard Krevolin and Phil Ehrenkranz; Emmis Books, January 2005), Ron Shaw gives the reader a one-on-one seminar in how to make it big – lessons that he learned the hard way in his own against-all-odds climb to success.

Shaw’s real-life stories from his 11 years in show business and more than 40 years in the corporate world illustrate how to get ahead by applying lessons he learned onstage and off. His most important advice: Never wait for someone to give you permission to pursue your dreams.

Shaw's career is one of those great American success stories: raised in a blue collar family, he received early lessons in tenacity and discovered the importance of taking initiative for getting ahead. When Shaw was 10, he landed a job as a paperboy when the required age was 12, then he negotiated a payment plan on a stunning new bicycle. At 11, he asked for an audition and was suddenly in show business, first as a piano player then, at 15, as a comedian, eventually opening for such greats as Dean Martin and Liberace. At 22, newly married and needing a steadier line of work, he left show business to become a pen salesman.

He went on to make it big in business by applying lessons he learned in the spotlight. Shaw, the President and CEO of Pilot Pen Corporation of America, has led the company from $1 million to nearly $200 million in sales.

The key to his success has been two-fold: first believing the product is the best, then employing "razzle-dazzle" marketing ideas that were humorous, and creating "well-orchestrated public relations." He adds: "It's all about going after your goals and building your brand."

This inspiring book provides readers with engaging stories, anecdotes and lessons covering the essentials of what they need to excel in their own careers. Among the lessons Shaw shares in PILOT YOUR LIFE:

• Create options when there appear to be none
• Stay open to opportunity, no matter how unlikely it appears
• Stand up for yourself, even when you think you don't have much leverage
• Innovation and inventiveness are the antidotes to "It will never work"
• Success is bred by a constant quest to improve

The book includes a foreword by Shaw's long-time friend Larry King of CNN and testimonials from well-known figures such as U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman and best-selling author Harvey Mackay. With style, humor and grace, PILOT YOUR LIFE offers readers a chart for navigating the treacherous waters of the business world.

About the authors
Ron Shaw is President and CEO of Pilot Pen Corporation of America. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the parent company, Pilot Corporation, the oldest and largest manufacturer of writing instruments in Japan. Shaw is one of only six Americans ever to be elevated to the Board of Directors of any publicly held Japanese corporation.

Richard Krevolin is an author, playwright, screenwriter, and professor of screenwriting at the University of Southern California Cinema/TV School. He is the author of "Screenwriting from the Soul" and "How To Adapt Anything Into A Screenplay."

Phil Ehrenkranz earned his law degree from George Washington University in 1964 and embarked on a 30-year career as a litigator in Washington, DC. He retired as a partner of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, where he had happily terrorized young lawyers' writing efforts. Not content to rest on these laurels, Phil sought more victims as a freelance editor. Phil is a literacy tutor and long-time poker player.

About Pilot Pen Corp. of America
The United States subsidiary of Pilot Corporation expects to hit $200 million in sales this year. It is the third largest pen company in the United States. Its parent company, Pilot Corporation, Tokyo, is the oldest and largest writing instrument manufacturer in Japan.