History of Kapp & Peterson

Banner: Two of Steve's favorites, his beloved 53 and his 01 System DeLuxe This morning I’m in my full-on fanboy mode, so be prepared.  Smoke strong tobacco.  Drink strong coffee.  Throw on your best Irish kilt & don't be afraid of the breeze—Éirinn go Brách! Some believe the Irish invented the kilt. I’m always in awe of everything that goes on at SPC, and when I finished up my last year’s teaching back in 2018, I was trying to think of something meaningful to engage with beyond my beloved middle schoolers.  I thought for awhile I’d apply at Smokingpipes, move to South Carolina and sweep out their warehouse until someone broke down and let me write a pipe description.  Gigi and I even looked at a few houses, as we love that area.  Then retirement came and after a few months it seemed that I had even less time than I did when I was teaching.  So the next best thing, I found, is to talk about Peterson pipes, whenever they'll let me, to one of the good folks that work at SPC or Laudisi. And failing that, to blog about Peterson pipes! This morning I’m really, really pleased to share a conversation I had with Steve Mawby, not only a plaid-wearing Pete Geek, but Smokingpipe’s Director of Sales.  I’ve met Steve at both the Chicago and then at the Texas Pipe Show (where he helped me acquire my Holy Grail J T Cooke Globe-grade pipe). I will not embarrass myself by telling you how many times I’ve called to ask him to look at a pipe for me.  The last time, if memory serves, I swear I heard him him strapping on a pair of roller skates just to make my calls a little less strenuous (I could hear the casters spinning). M: Where did you grow up, Steve? S: Just outside of Youngstown, Ohio in a little town called Niles, at the confluence of the Mahoning River and Mosquito Creek.  Niles is a suburb in the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area. M: How is it that you found your way down in South Carolina? S: Like most people from Northeast Ohio, my family took vacations down to the Myrtle Beach area when I was growing up, I don't know how it happens, but it just seems like everybody from Ohio somehow finds their way to Myrtle Beach.  So I knew the area fairly well, and when I got out of school, there weren’t a whole lot of job opportunities in the area and I didn’t want to just be hanging around a small down.  At 18, it seemed like a fate worse than death. I spent a year in Myrtle Beach for a year, then settled in Columbia, South Carolina, where I started up a property management and real estate investment company. After awhile, I took a a look at the market and thought Myrtle Beach looked like more was going on there, so moved back to Myrtle Beach.  The…