Mapping Asbury: After Glassboro

Neal Asbury ’80 once dreamt of playing professional football and performing as a world-renowned pianist. The path he ultimately chose? Neither.

Today, Asbury is a global entrepreneur, founder, owner and chief executive of the Legacy Companies and hosts Radio America’s nationally syndicated weekly radio talk show Neal Asbury’s Made in America, carried by 300 affiliates coast-to-coast. He has published over 300 articles on global trade issues and writes for Newsmax. He’s been mentioned by The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and frequently appears on networks including Fox News, CNBC, BBC and MSNBC. He was also named the 2008 recipient of the coveted United States National Champion Exporter of the Year Award.

Rewind a few decades, however, and his future might have looked much different had it not been for his time at a growing institution of higher education in southern New Jersey.

“When I was young, I really loved sports,” said Asbury. “My dad was a coach and there was a time I wanted to play football for the New York Jets. But around age 14, I had a deep interest in music. So my dad bought me a piano and, somehow, I auditioned and was accepted into the well-known music program at Glassboro State College (GSC).”

While Asbury loved music and performing, he expressed that the music composition curriculum at GSC was challenging for him.

“I had such a passion for piano, but I got started late,” said Asbury. “If you think about it, a lot of college kids are all starting in a similar place. You decide you want to learn how to be something and you all learn together. But music is different. You kind of have to already know what you’re doing, and I was behind.”

Despite his challenges, Asbury persevered through the program and graduated with his music degree in 1980, but not before he spent an eye-opening year abroad. Attending Middlesex Polytechnic in London, he spent his junior year studying, traveling across Europe and falling in love with the international experience.

“Professor Veda Zuponcic arranged for me to work with a well-known piano instructor and I owe much of my success to that year,” said Asbury. “Europe really changed my life. The cultures I was immersed in are what had me saying to myself, ‘I really need to find a way to plug myself into that professionally.’”

It wasn’t long before he found himself plugged in and on a new path. Asbury moved to Manhattan after graduation and landed a job at an export trading company.

“I had to start at the bottom, but I was in New York and I was working in international trade, so I was happy,” he recalls. “I worked hard and educated myself quickly. I put in all the extra hours and within a year I had found a new trading opportunity that would have me living in Singapore as a sales manager selling commercial food service equipment.”

Less than a decade later, Asbury applied his expertise in the industry and founded FAB Asia, Inc., an Asian fabricator of commercial kitchens for McDonald’s as well as other American restaurant chains. After overwhelming success, he decided to sell it to a public company in Chicago.

Asbury realized he didn’t just find purpose in the work he was doing—he was good at it. He spent close to 20 years working in Asia representing the interests of a number of U.S. manufacturers before founding another business and settling in southern Florida, headquarters to his new domestic/international manufacturing business in home and commercial kitchen appliances, The Legacy Companies.

“It really does go back to that year abroad during my time at Glassboro State,” he said. “I was able to see the world and what it had to offer. Now, my travels around the globe are equivalent to seven trips to the moon.”

Recently, Asbury returned to Glassboro for the first time in 40 years to tour the campus, speak to students studying in the William G. Rohrer College of Business and host an event open to the Rowan community highlighting another one of his passions, rare map collecting.

“It’s funny because while it may seem unconnected, my interest in maps actually encompasses everything I am,” said Asbury. “I am an artist, a world traveler, an entrepreneur and someone who loves and appreciates different histories and cultures. These maps were created by those who also traveled the world, especially those involved in trade, and they gathered information on their voyages. It all defines who I am.”

Author of the book Conscientious Equity: An American Entrepreneur’s Solutions to the World’s Greatest Problems, Asbury spent an evening on campus promoting his latest book. Telling America’s story through a unique prism of beautiful cartography, Mapping America: The Incredible Story and Stunning Hand-Colored Maps and Engravings that Created the United States (co-authored by National Geographic historian Jean-Pierre Isbouts) is the first in a series of three. Asbury teased two more books coming soon, Mapping the Holy Land and Mapping Asia. 

After a long, successful career with many accolades along the way, Asbury is paying tribute to his Glassboro State College roots and the future of entrepreneurship by establishing the Neal Asbury Annual Scholarship in Entrepreneurship, supporting students who are active in Rowan University’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. His hope is to inspire students to explore the world and support them as they follow—or reimagine—their dreams.

“I’ve spent a lot of time leading lecture series and sharing my story with college students in Florida studying entrepreneurship, so I decided I wanted to go back to the college where it all began for me,” concluded Asbury. “I’ve had my success because of the opportunity I was given at Glassboro, and I believe it is now up to today’s students to be the future of entrepreneurship.”

Asbury is thrilled to be supporting students who are tied to his biggest (and only) connection in New Jersey—one that lies in Glassboro.