"Telemarketing pioneer Lee R. Van Vechten passed away suddenly on March 14th as the result of a massive heart attack."

He was a co-founder of the American Teleservices Association and a past officer of the ATA’s board of directors. Regarded as an innovator in Direct Marketing and Telemarketing, he was a recipient of the Direct Marketing Association's "Telemarketing Council's Pioneer Award" and the ATA's "Teleprofessional Award."

Van Vechten spent 14 years with Dun & Bradstreet in various sales and management assignments with Dun's Marketing Services, culminating as senior executive of research and fulfillment and sales.

He was a past vice president of sales and marketing with AMR International, New York, where he developed and implemented his first successful telephone selling organization. He was also vice president of sales and marketing at Arthur W. Weisenberger & Co., an institutional brokerage firm.

Since 1977, he was president of his own publishing and consulting firm, F.G.I. & Affiliated Cos, where he provided professional advice to over 300 different businesses. He has been responsible for recruiting and training thousands of professional telephone sales and customer service representatives.

Lee was a prolific writer of articles for industry publications, and contributed the telemarketing compensation chapter to Prentice Hall's "Encyclopedia of Telemarketing" as well as the telemarketing chapter for Dartnell's "Marketing Managers Handbook". He authored several books and manuals, including "The Successful Sales Manager's Guide to Business-to-Business Telephone Sales" and "The Successful Sales Manager's Guide to Selling Through Proactive Customer Service" as well as his first publication "The TSR Hotline."

A native of Philadelphia, he is an alumni of Penn State University and proudly served as a non-commissioned communications officer in the U.S. Army, 3rd Armored Division in Germany.