Lydon at 50: Looking ahead while reflecting on our history

Lydon at 50: Looking ahead while reflecting on our history

This year, Lydon & Associates celebrates our 50th year of making an impact in marketing and design, and what an incredible journey it has been! Fifty years is quite a trek. It's no understatement to say that it has taken a lot of long hours and late nights—and a lot of passion for our work—to make it to this milestone. But it has also taken vision. Vision to know where we’re headed, but also to look back and understand where we’ve come from.

Lydon & Associates was founded in 1973 by Thomas Lydon. A skilled fine artist and illustrator, Tom’s entrepreneurial spirit and analytic mind led him into the burgeoning industry of graphic design. Susan (Plens) Lydon joined him in the business shortly after its founding, and they were married just a few years later. And boy did they leave their mark.

What started as a personal adventure for this ambitious couple eventually evolved from a little art studio into a full-fledged marketing and design agency. Tom and Sue led our company through ups and downs for more than 45 years before handing over the reins to the ambitious, next-generation partnership of Rick Yager, Brian Lydon and Rhonda Weiss. These veterans of the agency took over as our principals in 2017 and have been confidently leading the charge ever since.

We must also take a moment to celebrate our team, as well as our incredible clients, past and present, who have entrusted us over the years to care for their brands, achieve their goals, and tell their stories. Without all the great people and organizations that have touched our lives over the years, none of this would be possible—and for all of them we are deeply grateful.

We also thought it would be fun to kick off our anniversary year with fifty fascinating facts from the year of our founding in 1973—these little trivia tidbits really put into perspective just how long fifty years has been!

50 fascinating facts from 1973

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BUSINESS

  1. Other notable companies and organizations founded (happy 50th anniversary to all!):
    • Bain & Co.
    • CBOE Global Markets
    • Corcoran Group
    • FedEx
    • Golden Corral
    • Hershey’s Chocolate World
    • Michaels Craft Store
    • Nordstrom Rack
    • Patagonia, Inc.
    • RE/MAX
  2. The first handheld mobile phone call is made by a Motorola engineer in New York City.
  3. Kawasaki introduces the first personal watercraft, the Jet Ski.
  4. The 1973 Oldsmobile Toronado is the first car with a passenger airbag sold to the public.
  5. Baileys Irish Cream invented by South African David Gluckman while working for a London marketing agency designing drinks for an Irish company. A local restaurant, Baileys Bistro, inspired the name.
  6. Fast-food chain Burger Chef (inspired by McDonald’s and opened in 1958) pioneers the kids’ meal concept—their Fun Meal is the first to bundle burgers with a dessert and toy. McDonald’s would “adopt” the concept several years later with the introduction of the Happy Meal.
  7. WD-40 Company first listed on the Nasdaq Exchange. Congrats to WD-40 Company—who also happens to be a wonderful client of Lydon—on their own awesome 50th!
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The first mobile phone call. (Photo credit: Getty)

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1973 Oldsmobile Toronado.

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WD-40 Company celebrates 50 years on the Nasdaq in 2023. (Photo credit: Nasdaq, Inc.)

POLITICS

  1. Richard Nixon is sworn in for his second term as president of the United States. The Watergate scandal would break mid-year, with Nixon and several top administration officials implicated in criminal wrongdoing. The “Saturday Night Massacre” would occur several months after, leading to Nixon’s impeachment. Spiro Agnew resigns and Gerald Ford is sworn in as Vice President.
  2. The Endangered Species Act is passed in the United States.
  3. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act is signed into law, authorizing its construction.
  4. Women are able to serve on juries for the first time in all fifty states.
  5. After becoming governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter files an official report with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City of a UFO sighting he claims to have had in 1969. Carter describes the object as “bright white, changing to blue, red, and white again,” and calling it the “darndest thing I’ve ever seen.”
  6. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is founded.
  7. The Energy Crisis of 1973 causes the White House to lift its requirement that female staffers and employees only wear skirts—due to lowered building temperatures, pants are finally allowed to be worn by women.
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Nixon delivers infamous “I am not a crook” speech at the Disney Contemporary Resort.
(Photo credit: AP)

SPORTS

  1. George Foreman defeats Joe Frazier to win the heavyweight world boxing championship.
  2. George Steinbrenner buys the New York Yankees—the same year the team introduces the first designated hitter in MLB history.
  3. Gordon Johncock wins the Indianapolis 500 after just 133 laps when the race is called due to rain.
  4. Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.
  5. The NFL’s New York Jets play the Philadelphia Eagles for the first time. To this day, the Jets have never beaten the Eagles in a regular-season contest (a 0-12 lifetime record).
  6. The Miami Dophins beat the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII, becoming the first, and still the only, team to complete an undefeated NFL season—the University of Michigan marching band and Andy Williams performed during the Halftime Show, and the price of a 30-second ad cost just $88,000 ($588,000 adjusted for inflation) versus $7,000,000 today.
  7. Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs participate in “Battle of the Sexes” exhibition tennis match.
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Secretariat in the final stretch of the 1973 Belmont Stakes. (Photo credit: AP)

SCIENCE

  1. Comet “Kohoutek” is discovered, which passes the sun at perihelion in December before heading back out of the solar system, not expected to return for an estimated 75,000 years (now just 74,950 years).
  2. NASA launches Pioneer 11 on a mission to study the solar system. Its journey would take it through the asteroid belt, past Jupiter and Saturn and their moons, and into interstellar space beyond. Final contact with the probe was in 1995.
  3. The United States’ first space station, Skylab, is launched by NASA—with Skylab 2 launched almost immediately afterwards to repair damage to the station. Skylab 3 and Skylab 4 are lauched a few months later to run medical and scientific experiments.
  4. A total solar eclipse occurs—one of only seven to exceed seven minutes of totality during the entire second millennium.
  5. NASA launches Mariner 10 which becomes the first space probe to reach Mercury in 1974.
  6. Pioneer 10, launched in 1972 by NASA, sends back first close-up images of Jupiter.
  7. MRI technology is invented.
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An artist’s impression of a Pioneer spacecraft on its way to interstellar space. (Illustration credit: NASA)

CULTURE

  1. The Godfather wins Best Picture at the 45th Academy Awards.
  2. Movies released:
    • American Graffiti
    • Disney’s Robin Hood
    • Enter the Dragon
    • Live and Let Die
    • Magnum Force
    • Sleeper
    • Soylent Green
    • The Exorcist
    • The Sting
    • Westworld
  3. Albums released:
    • Aerosmith, Aerosmith (debut)
    • Any Old Wind That Blows, Johnny Cash
    • For Your Pleasure, Roxy Music
    • Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John
    • Greetings From Asbury Park NJ, Bruce Springsteen & E-street Band (debut)
    • Houses of the Holy, Led Zeppelin
    • I’ve Got So Much to Give, Barry White (debut)
    • Innervisions, Stevie Wonder
    • Let’s Get It On, Marvin Gaye
    • Life In a Tin Can, Bee Gees
    • Piano Man, Billy Joel
    • Quadrophenia, The Who
    • Queen, Queen (debut)
    • Ring Ring, ABBA (debut)
    • The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
  4. A block party is held in the Bronx by Clive Campbell, called the “Back to School Jam.” Going by the stage name DJ Kool Herc, Campbell stretches and scratches popular disco break beats and funky drum solos into the genre of music we now know today as Hip Hop.
  5. Elvis Presley’s “Aloha From Hawaii” TV special is broadcast around the world and watched by more than one million viewers.
  6. The word “factoid” is invented by Norman Mailer in his biography of Marylin Monroe, defined as “things that are not necessarily true but are repeated so often people think they are.”
  7. Most popular TV Shows:
    • All in the Family
    • Hawaii Five-O
    • Kojak
    • M*A*S*H
    • Maude
    • Sanford and Son
    • The Mary Tyler Moore Show
    • The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour
    • The Waltons
  8. Bob Fosse becomes the first, and to this day only, person to win an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony all in the same year.
  9. Famous births (happy 50th birthday to all!):
    • Kate Beckinsale (actress)
    • Dave Chappelle (comedian)
    • Mos Def (musician/actor)
    • Neil Patrick Harris (actor)
    • Heidi Klum (model)
    • Juliette Lewis (actress)
    • Rachel Maddow (journalist)
    • James Marsden (actor)
    • Jack McBrayer (actor)
    • Seth Meyers (TV host)
    • Larry Page (founder of Google)
    • Adam Scott (actor)
    • Monica Seles (tennis)
    • Kristin Wiig (actress)
    • Patrick Wilson (actor)
  10. Famous deaths:
    • Lon Chaney Jr. (actor)
    • Jim Croce (musician)
    • Lyndon B. Johnson (former president)
    • Veronica Lake (actress)
    • Bruce Lee (martial artist/actor)
    • Pablo Picasso (artist)
    • J.R.R. Tolkein (writer)
  11. Garlic knots are invented in Queens.
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American Graffiti theatrical release poster by Mort Drucker. (Copyright: Universal Pictures)
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Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album cover art by Storm Thorgerson. (Copyright: Harvest Records/Capitol Records/Universal Music Group)
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Promotional still from the NBC original sitcom Sanford and Son. (Copyright: Sony Pictures Entertainment)
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Master painter and inventor of cubism Pablo Picasso passes in 1973. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
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Who can imagine a world without garlic knots?! (Photo credit: Shutterstock)

WORLD

  1. The Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) in Chicago is topped out, becoming the tallest skyscraper in the world at 1,451 feet—and holding that designation for nearly 25 years.
  2. The Data Act, the world’s first data protection law, is enacted in Sweden.
  3. The Sydney Opera House opens in Sydney, Australia after 14 years of construction, in a ceremony led by Queen Elizabeth II.
  4. India launches its tiger conservation program Project Tiger. By 2006 the total Bengal tiger population was at just over 1,400, but due to the ongoing success of the program, the population today is estimated to be upwards of 3,300.
  5. Opening of the World Trade Center in New York City.
  6. The Norrmalmstorg bank robbery occurs in Stockholm, Sweden, famous for the origin of the term “Stockholm syndrome.”
  7. Nepalese Mountaineer Shambu Tamang becomes the youngest person to summit Mt. Everest at 16 years of age (though by some accounts he was 17 at the time), which he held for 18 years until 2001.
  8. The Paris Peace Accords are signed with the intent of ending American military operations in Vietnam and bringing home last American combat troops (though war would continue for two more years until 1975).
  9. Henry Kissinger wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
  10. The Concorde, the first supersonic passenger jet, makes its first transatlantic crossing at a record three hours and 32 minutes.
  11. World population reaches 3.93 billion, nearly half of the 7.94 billion (estimated) that we will reach in 2023.
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The Sears tower just a few years after its completion. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Wow, now that’s a long list! If you made it all the way through, it may give you a little sense of how far Lydon has come as a company. As we look ahead to this year, there will be more celebrations and fun surprises to come—but we are already looking beyond 2023 to many more years of adventure and opportunities to deliver our trademark marketing and design solutions and help our clients DO AMAZING.

Thanks to our incredible clients, team and vendor partners for being a part of it! ONWARD!