How ’Bout That Dow? RB Retiree: ‘America Easiest Place to Make Money’

Having borrowed the store copy of The New York Times to scan the headlines, Rancho Bernardo retiree Karl Spickert was aware of the Dow hitting a record high Tuesday.

But his perspective is wider than even a national newspaper’s.

“In all the countries I’ve lived, America is the easiest [place] for somebody to start a business, to make money—and it’s open” said Spickert, a Starbucks regular at the Vons Town Center.

Born nearly 85 years ago in the German town of Freiburg near the Swiss border, Spickert said he also has lived in South Africa and Australia (for five years)—and visited many other countries, including India and Pakistan.

An RB resident since 2005—he lives with his wife in a condo—Spickert has a married son in Temecula. Earlier he made a home in Florida and Connecticut

His interest in business is natural.

He founded SMTC Inc., a machine and tool maker, in Texas and sold it in 1977 for seven figures, he said.

It once employed as many as 20 people, he said Wednesday. It supplied Gulf Coast companies and Cooper Energy, which made pipelines and big compressors

“Some countries are almost impossible to start a business from scratch,” he said. But not here.

He said he founded SMTC on his own, “built it up slowly and sold it.”