30 Years and We're Still Here!
In 1996 we were sick of corporate life. Steve of being an EVP of a large trust department, me of not being able to work in finance because of this position. We lived in the City of Flint, MI the city with the 2nd highest personal crime rate in the country. Steve was from W. Lebanon NH and while I am from Ohio I had wanted to live in Vermont since a report in 3rd grade. And then there was our 8-year-old daughter who wanted to lived somewhere where she could be herself. That meant riding her bike around the block unsupervised, walking the dog etc - all those normal things which couldn't happen where we were.
It was Steve's son Geoff who tossed out the idea of buying a business. That option hadn't occurred to us, we didn't even know where to start. I actually called the Lake Champlain Chamber and asked how to go about it! The first business we looked at was a lawn tractor dealership. When Steve admitted he couldn't imagine buying a new one we knew we had to move on. Then we looked at a greenhouse despite the fact that I had killed every houseplant they stocked, we'd be working all hours during Jessie's summer break and to top it off, their winter gig was selling and maintaining Monitor propane heaters. Steve would sell and I would get to install and service them.
Thank goodness we found John Stimets at Country Business. He was a referee for the Vermont State Amateur Hockey Association and so he knew Roger and Bobbi Merchant who owned Vermont Trophy and Engraving. The business wasn't for sale but John thought they might be ready to retire and in checked most of our boxes. That was February and I was in Vermont looking at various unsuitable options when John sent me to have a look. It happened that Roger and Bobbi were to leave for vacation the next day. They new 'a lady' was coming to look around and I did browse the showroom which was clean and had quite a variety of products for sale. At one point Roger looked up from the counter and asked, "What do you want?" It seemed to me that he was ready to retire!
When I called Steve that night to share my find he made a comment that still makes me chuckle all these years later. "We send you to New England to find a business and you bring me a trophy shop in a gas station? Do people come in for a trophy while they gas up?" I explained that it was more than that and could likely be much more. On Earth Day Steve came with me to see the place with Roger and Bobbi giving us a tour and we ended up with a contract that was to close July 1, 1996.
In the meantime Steve needed to quit his job, I needed to get our 2nd home and main house ready for sale and figure out how to move and where to stay while the Flint house was on the market. Thankfully I was 30 years younger and had loads of energy.
On Father's day Steve, Jessie, our dog Hazel and I arrived at a cabin on Lake Champlain with a U-Haul. All our other possessions had been moved into storage nearby. We had no business, no house only hope that it would all work out. And then it hit me that one thing we had totally neglected to plan for - what to do with the 8 year-old? Oops. Luckily my mother had already planned to come for a week before the 7/1 closing and bless her - she agreed to stay the rest of the summer.
In some ways this all seems very long ago and in others like little time has passed. Steve and I were very content being 24/7/365 spouses and while he ran sales and marketing I started to learn engraving having always been the mechanical one of us so we weren't doing the same things all day long but when our attorney scolded us for not having a corporate meeting (noted in our book), a young voice from under the conference table said, "Every night at dinner" so Jessie was always part of the operation. Early on when we lived nearby I assigned her to help clean the showroom and she thought we didn't pay her enough. She even applied at a resale store in our neighborhood (she was 9) to see if they wouldn't pay her more. The nice lady did give her some fun dress up clothes that weren't saleable.
This really could turn into a book - and who knows, it might. For now we'll leaving it at this.