Business Section
Sunday, March 9, 2003
“About Face”
Service at this family business is more than skin deep
by Paul Franklin
Life at the dinner table was no different than most for the Glasgold family. School work, tennis lessons and dad’s day at the office were common topics at their home in Highland Park.
So of course that included talk about nose jobs, age lines, tucks, skin care and facelifts.
Seems some things never change.
Alvin Glasgold, 65, still runs his plastic surgery business in town - The Glasgold Group – except these days the dinners could just as well be served in his office off River Road.
Mark, 41, is a board-certified facial plastic surgeon with an expertise in the rejuvenation of the aging face. Robert, 33, completes his Fellowship as an intern in June at the practice, at which time he will join the family business. Daughter Ellen operates Ellen Lange Skin Care, a comprehensive clinic offering a variety of non-surgical treatments with her own line of skin-care products. And wife Joyce, the business mind since they opened in the late 1960s in New Brunswick, has for the past 13 years managed the office staff.
Cold cream, anyone?
“It’s wonderful,” says the father about the Glasgold Five. “It’s a unique experience, a very great feeling. I really didn’t think either one would be involved in medicine. I truly didn’t.”
Glasgold’s children agree that he didn’t push them into the field, though clearly he loved his work.
“Do whatever makes you happy,” he would say. The children also agree that their mother aspired specific achievement for all of them; especially the boys.
“She was the typical Jewish mother,” Mark says with a smile, “saying ‘make sure you get into medical school.’”
“That’s not totally wrong,” Joyce says, slightly defending herself regarding the direction of their education. “Rob did want to go to law school, and mark wanted to write. I’d say, ‘go to school, then write.’ The truth is that neither one know what they wanted until they were almost finished with college. But I knew they’d go into medicine. I had a feeling.”
As the only daughter and the middle child between two brouther, Ellen grew up with a love for tennis and sailing. All three did. But ulike her brothers, she know what she wanted from a very young age. Almost from the first time she was give an vanity mirror.
“I was going to be a cosmetic queen,” the 38-year-old says. “I was the black sheep of the medical family, but I still wound up working with them.”
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