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Same behavior, but more people defending them...

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nice to see how much things have changed in 30 years...

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Listen to NPR -- click link below:

http://www.marketplace.org/node/109361/player/storyplayer

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Port Authority sold rights to World Trade Center name for $10 in 1986

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2013

BY SHAWN BOBURG
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD




Guy Tozzoli in 1998. The Port Authority sold the right to license the name ?World Trade Center? to the non-profit he led.

For more than four decades, the World Trade Center ? whether standing majestically over lower Manhattan, lying in the ruins of a terrorist attack, or awaiting resurrection in a new form ? has been one of the world?s greatest public landmarks.

But in a quiet deal nearly 30 years ago, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey sold off the rights to the iconic buildings? name to a non-profit organization established by one of its powerful executives.

The price was $10.

Until his death this year, the former executive, Guy Tozzoli, earned millions primarily by licensing the name through the group, the World Trade Centers Association. And the Port Authority is among the hundreds of licensees around the world paying thousands of dollars each year for the privilege of using the words ?World Trade Center.?

Now, with the Port Authority hoping to sell branded souvenirs and merchandise next year after the new One World Trade Center skyscraper opens, the World Trade Centers Association is requesting free office space worth more than $500,000 a year in exchange for use of the trademark.

?I am gravely concerned that a secret deal, years ago, sold the name of the World Trade Center for 10 bucks,? said the Port Authority?s deputy executive director, Bill Baroni, an appointee of Governor Christie. ?And I?m going to look into the initial contract and look into where we are today with regard to this organization.?

The deal with Tozzoli?s group came out of an era when the Port Authority ? which runs the region?s airports, major bus terminals, PATH train system, seaports ? was often criticized for leading an imperial, self-interested existence in which its executives were rewarded with travel and other perks unusual in government.

The sale of the trademark turned out to be perhaps the biggest financial benefit of Tozzoli?s long, accomplished career during which he oversaw construction of the Twin Towers. In 2011, his last year as president of the non-profit, according to WTCA tax filings, Tozzoli received $626,000 for working an average of one hour per week.

A World Trade Centers Association representative said the organization was not set up to make money, but rather to pursue laudable goals. A search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office shows the association has trademarked the name on a host of products including greeting cards, pens and binoculars.

?The WTCA is a not-for-profit company,? said its general counsel, Scott Richie. ?It has not used the trademarks to generate wealth. It has used the trademarks for the collective benefit of its members, helping them develop facilities around the world that foster trade.?

The spat is intensifying as the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks approaches ? a tragedy that the non-profit groups says in a promotional video on its website has raised awareness of the World Trade Center brand.

Worldwide name

The WTCA, which has its trademarks in more than 100 countries, charges an initial $200,000 for use of the name on a building, plus $10,000 in annual membership fees. The Port Authority, owner of the nearly completed skyscraper called One World Trade Center, pays the $10,000 fee, records show. Silverstein Properties, the firm that is building three other towers on the site that also use the name, has an undisclosed agreement with the association, Richie said.

Each year, more than 320 members, public and private, also pay. In 2011, the company?s revenues were $6.9 million.

Its members are an eclectic mix.

The one in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai is a 39-story tower with embassies, government offices and corporate headquarters. Boston?s is a 428-room luxury hotel and large convention center on the seaport.

There is also one in a run-down storefront off Hudson Street in Hackensack. Suite 1 of the building is the home of the World Trade Center of Northern New Jersey, which doubles as a real estate office.

Kley Peralta, a 70-year-old real estate broker who runs the center with his son, the owner, said they get business leads through the World Trade Center network.

?Let?s assume someone in the World Trade Center in Bogot?, Colombia, has somebody who wants money to develop a coal mine. And they say, ?We need $300 million.? We know where the collateral providers are, so we package the deal. That?s because we are involved with the World Trade Centers Association,? he said. ?For us, it?s been fantastic.?

The Peraltas take a commission if they can close the deal, he said.

The broader WTCA says it offers members some of the same kind of services: information about market conditions in their respective regions, local business contacts, business support services and group trade missions.

Members can use the facilities of other World Trade Centers around the world. And the association encourages minimum standards for all its facilities, from hosting periodic speakers? series to hanging clocks with worldwide time zones.

But use of the name is perhaps the most valuable.

?From my perspective,? Richie, of the WTCA, said, ?the right to use a name that has been out in the public face for 40 years is a pretty good bargain in and of itself. But, in addition, we have set up a network of World Trade Centers? that can connect with each other, he said.

He added: ?I don?t see where we have an issue where we have a public entity gifting some sort of a benefit to former employees.?

Nevertheless, records show that the venture was lucrative for Tozzoli and other Port Authority retirees. Public tax filings by the WTCA show that in 2009, 2010 and 2011, Tozzoli?s combined annual compensation was $1.7 million. That was on top of a $113,000-a-year public pension. The three years of tax filings are currently the only ones publicly available.

Richie said Tozzoli?s compensation was based on advice from tax attorneys regarding appropriate pay for the non-profit?s president.

?As the WTCA grew in size and scope, his salary grew much with the size of the organization and the work he had to do,? Richie said. He said he could not comment ?on any retirement arrangement.?

At least two other former Port Authority employees worked for Tozzoli during his last few years as WTCA president and also drew six-figure salaries, in addition to their Port Authority pensions, records show.

Richie said that, as far as he knew, no former Port Authority employees currently work for the organization, which had 27 employees last year, according to the records.

Tozzoli, a North Bergen native and longtime Westwood resident, who died in February at age 90, retired in February 2011, with the title president emeritus.

From lofty origins

In the 1960s and 1970s, the concept of creating a global network of trade centers was novel, brimming with the potential to crack open isolationist dictatorships and the Soviet bloc. Port Authority officials, fresh off building the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, embraced it, calling it a ?movement.? And Tozzoli, an engineer who became director of the Port Authority?s World Trade Department, was its public face.

Tozzoli, who initially doubled as a volunteer president of the fledgling association, took first-class flights around the world, accompanied by other agency officials and their wives, to promote the concept. They met with world leaders over high-priced dinners and receptions.

One three-week, around-the-globe trip in 1977, taken by Tozzoli and the chairman of the Port Authority?s board of commissioners, generated controversy. The trip by Chairman William J. Ronan and Tozzoli included stops in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, where they were received by business leaders and delegates at other World Trade Centers. A local gossip columnist in Tokyo at the time who wrote about the group?s travels noted how Ronan, his wife and several other executives and their wives ate dinner at the Tokyo branch of Maxim?s, a legendary French restaurant.

News of the trip led to changes in the transportation agency?s travel policy.

Tozzoli publicly defended that and other trips he took while at the Port Authority, saying they developed business for the region?s ports.

During his career, Tozzoli was credited for choosing the architect of the Twin Towers, Minoru Yamasaki, for helping to conceive of the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the north tower, and for coming up with the idea to use construction fill from the Twin Towers to extend lower Manhattan, creating what is now Battery Park City.

But when he retired from the Port Authority in 1987, Tozzoli carried on his most enduring mission, as full-time president of the WTCA. A contract dated months earlier, on Feb. 18, 1986, gave his WTCA the rights to five ?World Trade Center? trademarks, previously registered by the Port Authority in New York State, for $10.

The contract was signed by the agency?s secretary at the time, Doris Landre, although it is unclear who else knew about and authorized the deal.

The agency?s executive director at the time, Stephen Berger, could not be reached for comment.

Along with the trademarks, the Port Authority also provided the group with 9,000 square feet of free office space on the 77th floor of the north tower.

Tozzoli ran the private organization for the next 24 years, and over that time, the trademark became a real estate marketing tool. Today, the association advertises on its website that the World Trade Center name can bring landlords higher rents and occupancy rates, citing studies it has commissioned. And the 9/11 attacks have made the brand more recognizable around the world, a promotional video on its website says.

John Adeleke, executive director of the World Trade Center of Nigeria in Lagos, says in the video: ?Certainly 9/11 has ironically raised the profile of the name such that you don?t really have to explain the name anymore. You may still have to explain in a little more depth what it actually does, but at least the name is pretty much in everyone?s mind?s eye.?

Tozzoli makes an appearance in the same video. ?A World Trade Center is a physical facility with a purpose, a very specific purpose,? he says. ?And that is, to create a marketplace for those people who engage in international business or service international business.?

The negotiations over use of the name on merchandise represents an expansion of Tozzoli?s original idea: promoting peace and prosperity through trade centers.

In return for allowing the Port Authority to sell merchandise that carries the organization?s inherited trademarks ? including ?World Trade Center? and ?WTC? ? the association has requested about 9,000 square feet of rent-free office space in one of the new gleaming towers the Port Authority is financing, documents obtained by The Record show. At the going rate of $65 per square foot, that?s worth about $585,000 a year. The Port Authority estimates merchandise sales could bring the agency $23 million to $28 million annually.

Baroni, who said he has never spoken with anyone at the WTCA, said he asked his Port Authority staff to review the organization?s activities.

?Let?s see what it is and whether it still fits the mission of the Port Authority,? he said.

Email: boburg@northjersey.com

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