TIVERTON — Minutes before, Ted Richards had boldly promised two of the most influential women in Washington an idea too good to refuse.

Now the young jewelry representative had just the short drive from his hotel to the new Senate Office Building to come up with something.

“I told them, ‘I’m on my way,’ but I didn’t have any idea. I told myself, ‘You have 10 minutes to come up with something brilliant.”

He was in this pickle because, as new man on the staff of Attleboro-based jewelry maker Robbins Co., he had volunteered for the firm’s toughest territory.

That would be the Washington DC area, so he’d spent the day harassing government offices for business. Perhaps to get him off her back after four calls, one staffer suggested that he call Ellen Proxmire and Lindy Boggs, wives of the Senator and Congressman. They were in charge of planning the Inaugural Ball. Maybe they could use something.

“Perfect. I had a wife, four kids, bills — I had to come up with something.”

He’d scarcely left when inspiration struck in the form of his recollection of a famous Yousuf Karsh photo of President Kennedy and wife Jackie.

“The problem with the recent election had been that the Kennedy people despised the Texas people (where Vice President Lyndon Johnson was from), and the Texas people despised the Kennedy people.”

Why not put Lyndon Johnson and JFK onto one medallion — posed similarly to that Jackie and JFK photo.

“That was my pitch. (Ms. Proxmire and Ms. Boggs) were in disbelief at first and then — they loved it.”

Mr. Richards called back to company headquarters — Can you get (sculptor) Phil Karczowski to work with this? “And we need it in ten days.”

Robbins Co. suddenly found itself with an order for Presidential medallions — two full-sized and 30,000 miniatures.

“The bill was huge and the company couldn’t believe it,” he said with a laugh.

Two gold versions were also made — one each for JFK and LBJ.

In his vast scrapbook collection, Mr. Richard has a photo of LBJ sitting at a desk not long after JFK’s assassination. The only item on the desk is his gold inaugural medallion of the two men together. A similar photo made the cover of a national magazine at the time of LBJ’s inauguration.

The work continues

“That’s where it all really started for me,” said Mr. Richards who is now 86 and lives at Brookdale Sakonnet Bay Manor in Tiverton. His wife Ann (Cleveland) Richards passed away several years ago but her photos and those of their big family are everywhere.

Fifty five years after that success, it’s Presidential election season again which brings these and the countless other memories that fill his 180 scrapbooks flooding back. His Sakonnet Bay room is filled to capacity with precious mementos, photos taken with Presidents, and cast iron fire trucks (another branch of his varied and continuing career).

Mr. Richard grew up in Providence, went to Moses Brown, then Brown and Harvard Business School. Robbins Co. was his second job after school and service in the Korean War and, after the medallion success, he soon became a director there.

The inauguration medallion breakthrough was just the start. The years to come brought orders from political parties during campaign season, government, service organizations, private companies — “You name it.” He created and sold commemorative belt buckles, tie tacks, medals … One specially important order for the Civil War Centennial led to medallions featuring Civil War battlefields — and breakfast with former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower, who lived in Gettysburg, had been invited to the unveiling of the Gettysburg medallion.

And the orders keep coming in. He still has active accounts of his own, among them the Kennedy Library, the Holy Name Society, The College of William and Mary, Lions Club International …

“The thing is I love to work. This is my bedroom, my office, my shipping department. I don’t drive anymore so I have a hell of a time getting up to the Kennedy Library, but that hasn’t stopped me,” Mr. Richards said. He recently completed the sale of 500 Kennedy PT 109 pins for a “spiffy shop.” Now, as always, he remains intimately involved in every step, from design through production.

It’s been a roller coaster ride of success, bankruptcy, recovery — “a great adventure.”

“I should have wound up a wealthy individual, instead I was a guy who had a ball doing what he loved. Nobody ever had more fun at his job.”

He has a special fondness for his time as co-owner of Utexiqual (Utility, Excellence, Integrity, Quality) Products, a firm he and a partner formed to sell cast iron models of horse-drawn fire trucks, wagons and other toys from the 1800s. A magazine story shows him sitting cross-legged surrounded by high-quality examples of their work. “With Ted Richards, it started as a hobby. Now over 1,400 stores …” reads the headline.

“People loved them.” One day he walked into FAO Schwarz in New York with a cast iron hook and ladder truck, wrangled an interview, and walked out with an order for 50.

“There was a phone booth across the street so I called Marshall Fields, told them about this fire truck that FAO Schwarz would soon be selling and the fellow said, ‘Put me down for 50.’ And it just went from there.”

It was a great 14-year run “until Taiwan started sending over cheap knockoffs of our designs. Destroyed our business,” and led to a date with bankruptcy court. “It was tough but there is nothing to do but get up and dust yourself off.”

When not conducting business in his home office, Mr. Richards said he enjoys life at Sakonnet Bay — especially open bar days when he and friends gather for some laughs and, in this election year, to talk politics — he holds up the conservative end. “I’m pretty badly outnumbered.”

Elections, campaigns, inaugurations — “those have always been exciting times for me. So few people truly enjoy their careers. I’m one of the lucky ones.”