Irwin Loiterstein (at right, photographed with Howard Berliner of The Kaufman Fund), has had a more than 50-year career in the Christmas tree business, first as a retailer and then as one of the largest wholesalers in the St. Louis region. Loiterstein was part of the first graduating class at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. (Photo by Bill Motchan/St. Louis Jewish Light)

Irwin Loiterstein doesn’t know how a Jewish kid from University City who was part of the first graduating class at the University of Missouri–St. Louis became one of the region’s largest wholesalers of Christmas trees.

It wasn’t part of any plan.

“I never thought I’d be selling Christmas trees, that’s for sure,” said Loiterstein, the general manager of Seasonable Sales.

In fact, Loiterstein expected to become a CPA when he graduated from UMSL in 1967 with a business degree and emphasis in accounting. He soon landed a job with the Internal Revenue Service and spent a year there before making a move to A.G. Edwards, the former financial services firm.

Along the way, he married Sherre Schenberg, whose father, Harry, owned a chain of four grocery stores, Schenberg Markets, in the St. Louis region. Loiterstein remembers people from Chicago coming to St. Louis to purchase kosher food items from him during the Passover season. In December, Schenberg Markets also sold Christmas trees.

Harry Schenberg had heart surgery in1969 and asked Loiterstein to come help with the family business. Loiterstein didn’t have much interest in running a grocery store, but he took over Schenberg’s Christmas tree lot on DeBaliviere Avenue near the present site of the Forest Park-DeBaliviere MetroLink station.

From there, he started expanding the business, opening additional lots around St. Louis.

Raised in the Jewish faith, Loiterstein hadn’t grown up with Christmas trees in his home, but he came to appreciate the tradition.

“On Saturdays and Sundays, I’d go to the various tree lots we had and check them out,” he said. “All the families were shopping, and they were happy as could be. It was a great time of year.”

Loiterstein made a connection with someone in the Venture chain of local retail stores.

“They were busy during Christmas, so along they came and said, ‘How would you like to open the lots and just give us a commission off of them?’” Loiterstein recalled. “I said, ‘Well, I never thought of that, but all I can do is go broke, right?’”

Later, he’d establish a similar relationship with Target stores, setting up his trees in the parking lots outside the stores and paying a commission to his hosts.

“They would say, ‘Look, Christmas is our busiest holiday, and we don’t have time to go find extra help and then oversee a whole other operation. So how would you like to do it?’” he said.

Loiterstein started out selling primarily Scotch Pine trees, and he got to know the suppliers in Michigan and Canada.

“Eventually, I became a wholesaler in St. Louis because there’s strength in getting more people to buy together,” he said. “Some of these guys weren’t buying enough, and they were having problems getting the trees and then getting the prices. They were sticking the price to them. I ended that for them.”

Loiterstein found himself becoming active in the National Christmas Tree Association, serving on its board of directors and chairing the association’s market expansion committee. He’s learned far more than he ever imagined about the differences between Scotch Pines, Balsam Firs and Fraser Firs – which have replaced the Scotch Pine as the preferred tree and are typically sourced from North Carolina. He understands where and when trees grow and other ins and outs of the industry.

His business, Seasonable Sales, has come to also supply B&B trees – ball and burlap – to landscaping companies.

Loiterstein, who’s been dealing with health issues this year and had an extended stay in a rehabilitation facility, is still thankful for the education he got at UMSL in the early days of the university.

After graduating from University City High School in 1962, he started his college journey at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau but didn’t feel comfortable in the small-town setting. He also spent a brief time at the University of Missouri–Columbia, but his mother encouraged him to come back home because of the extra cost of living on his own.

UMSL had just opened, and he said he began taking evening courses and eventually classes during the day.

“I thought it was a really great experience,” Loiterstein said. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but we had the guys who wrote the textbooks teaching us. It was amazing. We got a really good education.”

It ultimately helped prepare him for the career he never saw coming.