Posted March 2020

TGI Celebrates 50 Years in Business in New York City at the Ink48 Hotel on January 15, 2015. The celebration recognized tenured employees, dealer dignitaries and key partners, including representatives from Ricoh, Toshiba, Lexmark and DLL. TGI received Lanier’s #1 dealer in USA Award, Toshiba’s #1 Dealer in Eastern Region Award, and Lexmark’s #1 Dealer in Northeast Award.

One of the attendees, Frank Cannata posted a recap of the evening on The Cannata Report.

“We were happy to attend this important milestone for one of the more successful dealers in the United States. Frank Grasso, TGI’s CEO, is a young, energetic and outstanding business leader. TGI was built by his father and Steve Adler, TGI’s President, along with several other key players. All of them were acknowledged by Grasso in a humorous and heartfelt manner during the event. When Frank’s father passed away, he had several choices to make. TGI was built on loyalty and a more traditional approach to the business. Frank recognized that he needed to expand his Father’s vision and went about building a sustainable business model for the future on the foundation he was given.

As recognition of his importance to his major suppliers, Jim Coriddi, VP, Sales Ricoh; Scott Maccabe, CEO, Toshiba; and Mike Johnson, VP, North America, Business Channels and SMB along with Phil Boatman, Business Alliance Manager, Lexmark attended along with other key staff members. Frank spends a good part of the evening awarding tenured employees at every event TGI hosts and this event was no different.

Frank possesses many of the qualities that I admire about the leading independent dealers. They all have a vision, love of the business, innate sense of what is wrong and what is right for their respective companies. Most of all is their recognition that without committed employees it would be an impossible task. Frank Grasso is a kindred spirit of mine. What we both have in common is that we are still just a couple of “street kids from Brooklyn” who learned a long time ago to be proud of who we are and where we came from. Most of all, we learned to take care of our families and to never bring dishonor to our respective family names. From one Brooklyn boy to another, I would like to say to my good friend Frank Grasso, ‘You did good Cheech!’”

Visit the TGI facebook page to see a photos from TGI’s 50th Anniversary party.