Jeb Balise remembers many bird-hunting trips from his youth with his grandfather, Paul Balise.
The two would talk partridge, pheasant, or whatever the target was on the given day, but also about life and business — specifically, the car business.
“He told me to always be honest and treat people well,” Balise said of his grandfather, who started the business Jeb now serves as president in 1919. “He was a very smart man and a really good listener; he wasn’t a man of many words, but when he spoke, you listened; I learned a lot from him.”
Likewise with the second generation of the family to put his mark on Balise Motor Sales, his father James E. Balise. “Shrewd and patient — those are the words I’d use to describe him,” said Jeb Balise. “He had wonderful business sense as well as a great sense of timing and vision — he had one of the first Honda dealerships in the country – and hopefully he’s passed some of that on to me.”
The ability to learn from previous generations is one of many factors that has led Balise to its standing as one of the largest auto groups in the Northeast. And the three generations that built the company will be among the inductees in the Class of 2006 for the Western Mass. Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, located at the Andrew M. Scibelli Enterprise Center in the Technology Park on the campus of Springfield Technical Community College.
Family businesses are well-represented in this year’s class. Also on this list is the Fontaine family and the three generations that have managed the Fontaine Bros.
construction company, and the Grenier family, which features two generations that have owned and managed a photography studio now known as Grynn & Barrett.
Meanwhile, another pair of inductees — Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson, founders of gunmaker Smith & Wesson — had some second-generation involvement in their famous venture (two of Wesson’s sons eventually became partners with him after Smith retired) and the remaning members of the class, Jesse Lanier and Barbara Moss Lanier, owners of seven Kentucky Fried Chicken (now known simply as KFC) franchises, are seeing the next generation of their family become involved in the business.
“This region has a tremendous heritage of entrepreneurship, said William Kwolek, director of Development for STCC and one of the organizers of the Oct. 5 banquet at which inductees will be honored. “Many of the ventures eventually became family businesses, with some of them spanning three or more generations.”
Kwolek told BusinessWest that proceeds from the induction banquet, as they have since the event was first staged in 2000, go to support entrepreneurship programs in Western Mass., including the YES (Young Entrepreneurial Scholars) program, which serves more than 1,000 young men and women in two dozen area high schools, as well as the Community Foundation of Western Mass. student business incubator.
Roughly $50,000 was raised last year, he noted, adding that organizers are looking to top that figure with a projected sell-out of the banquet.
Here’s a look at the Class of 2006.
Food for Thought
Jesse Lanier remembers his reaction when a colleague at Southern New England Telephone told him he was leaving a good job with solid pay and benefits to manage his own convenience store.
“I recall thinking, ‘why would he do a dumb thing like that?’” Lanier told BusinessWest. “At the time, it didn’t make any sense to me.”
But several months later, it made perfect sense, because Lanier did pretty much the same thing.
He left a job as manager of Purchasing at SNET to become a KFC franchisee. He formed Springfield Food Systems, a franchise chain, one that currently includes seven restaurants, which he operates with his wife Barbara.
“I knew I wasn’t going to be president of the company and I wasn’t really happy with my position,” he said, referring to SNET. “So I started looking at other options that would allow me to work for myself.”
One of those options was an auto dealership — he gained certification in GM’s Buick Division — but the economy was soft at the time (the early ’80s) and the auto industry was hurting. So at the advice of a friend already managing some KFCs, he gave the chain a hard look.
Over the past 23 years, Springfield Food Systems has grown to seven locations; five KFCs, a KFC/A&W All American Food Restaurant, and a KFC/Long John Silver’s multi-brand restaurant.
Jesse Lanier told BusinessWest that learning the business was hard — “I didn’t even know how to cook; I couldn’t fry an egg without burning it” — but learning how to manage a transient workforce has been the biggest challenge.
“If we get a year out of non-management people, that’s pretty good,” he explained. “Managers will often give us two or three years, but there is a lot of turnover, and that’s part of being in this industry.”
Jeb Balise started learning his business before he was in kindergarten.
He told BusinessWest, which recently named him the magazine’s ‘Top Entrepreneur’ for 2005, that he had his first job (opening and closing a garage doors) at the family’s Chevrolet dealership at age 5. Today, he presides over an auto group that includes 16 new-vehicle franchises, including Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford (3), Honda, Lexus, Mazda, Fuso, Nissan (2), Pontiac, Saturn (2), Scion, and Toyota; five Ready Credit used car dealerships; and three collision repair centers.
The process of building that empire began a few months after the end of World War I, when when Paul E. Balise, who grew up working his family’s farm in Hatfield, purchased some welding equipment and began fixing farm vehicles and automobiles. He called that venture the Square Deal Garage.
Paul Balise, eventually shifted to auto sales, and became an associate Chevrolet dealer in Hatfield. In 1929, he moved to Chicopee Falls and opened a Chevrolet dealership there. In the 1930s, during the height of the Great Depression, when many car dealers were failing, Paul Balise moved his business to a bigger location on Main Street in Springfield, and later to a location on East Columbus Avenue that would be its home for more than a half century.
James E. Balise, one of Paul’s 10 children, became president and dealer of Balise Motor Sales in 1958. In 1971, he took a chance on a relatively unknown Japanese automaker, and opened one of the first Honda dealerships in North America. In 1985, that dealership moved to Riverdale Street in West Springfield and would become the first of many new facilities to bear the Balise name.
Jeb Balise became president and dealer of Balise Motor Sales in 1986, and over the past 20 years has led an ongoing program of expansion.
Like many of Springfield’s notable entrepreneurs, Horace Smith started his career at the Springfield Armory. He served as an apprentice there upon completing his public school education, and eventually started his own gun-manufacturing business.
He also worked for several gun-component makers, including Allen, Brown, and Luther, manufacturer of rifle barrels. It was there that he met Daniel Baird Wesson, also a gunsmith, with whom he would partner to forge several breakthroughs in firearms production — and create one of the most recognizable brands in the history of American business.
Today, the Smith & Wesson name is on not only handguns, but myriad other safety products ranging from mace to handcuffs; police bicycles to flashlights. But the name is synonymous with handguns and handgun manufacturing, and today, after several years of struggle, the company headquartered on Roosevelt Avenue is staging a comeback, with several new contracts from domestic and foreign military units and law enforcement agencies
Thus continues a success story that began in 154 years ago, when Wesson, who, while toiling for Allen, Brown, and Luther, worked in his spare time to perfect a practical cartridge. He eventually persuaded Smith to go into business with him and produce the cartridge in Norwich, Conn. In 1854, the two patented a pistol that was not only a cartridge weapon, but had a new and distinct repeating action. While the concept was not entirely successful in pistols, it adopted well to rifles and it became the basic invention incorporated into the world-famous Winchester rifle.
After the partners sold their rifle patent rights to Volcanic Arms Company, Smith retired and Wesson accepted the position of superintendent of the company. Under Wesson, Volcanic Arms produced the self-primed metallic cartridge used throughout the Civil War. In 1857, the two men rejoined to produce the Smith & Wesson revolver, which became an enormous success. It was the only product of its kind, and was adopted by U.S. military authorities and several foreign governments. By 1860, Smith & Wesson was employing 600 people and had become one of the largest gun manufacturers in the world.
The company continued to introduce new products and innovations. In 1869, the two partners purchased a design by William C. Dodge that emptied shells from the gun. In 1887, Wesson patented a safety revolver that prevented unintentional firing, and by the turn of the century, the company was producing a line of hammerless revolvers. In 1899 the company introduced what is probably the famous revolver in the world, the .38 caliber Model 10, which has been in continuous production ever since, with more than 6 million units produced.
In 1948, R. Robert Grenier started bringing into focus an entrepreneurial venture that would eventually bring his family name into homes and schools across Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. His photo studio started small, in the first floor of the family home on Pine Street Holyoke. But it has grown to become one of the largest businesses of its kind in the Northeast.
Today, under the leadership of four of Grenier’s children, the company has several successful departments, including school pictures, high school senior portraits, sports photography, weddings, family portraits, and many others. The business has also expanded its geographic reach over the years, and has plans to open a studio in Connecticut.
Nicknamed ‘Grin,’ Robert Grenier first partnered with Lucien Ducharme in a business that centered mostly around portrait photography. The company grew steadily through the ’50s and ’60s, with wedding, family portrait, children, and high school senior photography. Ducharme retired in the mid ’60s, leaving the Grenier name to stand alone on tens of thousands of pictures.
By the mid ’70s, the name became Greniers. That’s when the first member of the second generation, Larry, joined his father in the business. He would be followed by brothers Marc (1976), Dan (1979), and Chris (1980). Together, members of the second generation have presided over explosive growth and a host of new business opportunities.
In 1982, after suffering a massive heart attack, Robert Grenier, passed the torch of company president to Larry, and in 1991, he sold the business to his four sons. Today, they each take leadership roles in the company. Dan Grenier founded and now manages the grades K-11 Daniel’s School Pictures department, and serves as vice president of Marketing and Product Development for The Greniers. Marc heads studio operations as Vice President and Director, while Chris directs the company’s high school senior accounts.
Today, the company counts more than 60 high schools and colleges and about 300 elementary and middle schools on its customer list, as well as other clients ranging from the Vermont State Police Department to the Holyoke and Hartford, Conn. fire departments. The profound growth of the business led the Grenier Brothers to build a new, 24,000-square-foot facility on Jarvis Avenue in Holyoke that now houses all operations. Creation of a similar facility in Connecticut, one that enable the company to better serve its many clients there, is in the planning stages.
In anticipation of further growth and territorial expansion, the Grenier brothers decided earlier this year to change the name of their company to Grynn & Barrett Studios.
David Fontaine told BusinessWest that while he’s honored to be part of the Class of 2006, he considers his grandfather to be the real entrepreneur in the family.
Eudore Fontaine didn’t want to be a farmer. He had loftier dreams, and left his native Canada in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, to pursue them. He came to Chicopee to live in his aunt’s boarding house, and quickly found work as a carpenter. He was joined in that profession by his brother, George, and it wasn’t long before they decided they would like to work for themselves.
They issued 35 shares of common stock and formed a construction company — Fontaine Bros. Inc. — that has been part of the Western Massachusetts for the past 73 years. The family business, now in its third generation of leadership, started with residential construction, and evolved over the following decades, becoming one of the leading builders of school facilities in the Commonwealth.
Some of the most recognizable buildings in the region, including the new MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield, the Fine Arts Center on the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus, Scibelli Hall on the campus of Springfield Technical Community College, Holyoke High School, Dean Vocational Technical High School , and many others were built by Fontaine.
Given a strong foundation by Eudore and George Fontaine, succeeding generations of the family have built on the base, responding to changing societal needs in the process. Eudore’s son, Ray, who became president in 1950, would lead the company to post-war prosperity, shifting its focus from residential to commercial construction. In the late 1950s and 60s, when Baby Boomers were reaching school age in huge numbers, Fontaine built schools in communities across Western Mass. and well beyond. In the 60s and early 70s, when UMass-Amherst was undergoing explosive growth, Fontaine built many of the facilities that shape the campus today, including the Fine Arts Center, Tobin Hall and Herter Hall.
In 1982, another of Eudore’s sons, Lester, became president of the company, and guided it to continued growth, including a host of new school buildings and other public facilities, including Dean Tech, the Rebecca M. Johnson Magnet School in Springfield, and others. Lester’s son David became president of the company in 1995, and has president over several recent projects, including the $60 million MassMutual Center and the Bartley Center for Athletics and Recreation at Holyoke Community College, for which the company won a Construction Excellence Award in the category of new construction from the state.
For more information on this year’s dinner event, contact William Kwolek, Executive Director of the STCC Foundation; (413) 755-4477.
