He served as executive vice president/secretary of two East Coast regional
associations of the American Supply Association: the New England Wholesalers
Association and the New York State Plumbing & Heating Wholesalers. In 2000
ASA appointed Sell as regional association executive of the Middle Atlantic
States Association, formerly MAWA, and executive vice president of the
Wholesalers Association of the North East (WANE). He also was chairman of ASA’s
Regional Association Executives Council and member of ASA’s Education
Foundation. In addition, he served as an industry consultant to the
Associated Cooperative Wholesale Distributors and as a marketing consultant to
the American Supply Association and PHCP wholesale firms F. W. Webb Co.,
Bedford, MA, and Modern Plumbing Supply, New Milford, CT.
When he was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 47, doctors told him he
would probably die before he reached age 50. That’s when he took up the cause
of educating men on the importance of the PSA test in detecting prostate cancer
in its earlier, curable stages. Sell said in a letter to Supply House Times in 2003 that many
doctors don’t test for prostate cancer in younger men when the disease can be
at its most fierce and deadliest form. It was at that time he revealed that he
had trained for a position as chaplain in the nationwide nursing home ministry
of Community Chaplain Service so that he could bring comfort and hope to those
facing a serious or terminal illness. He also served as a missionary chaplain
at The Chapel at Nichol’s House Nursing Home.