Page 32 - BusinessWest April 1, 2024

paperwork created by the federal government’s infamous Cash for Clunkers program designed to fuel auto sales in the wake of the Great Recession.
But she wasn’t thinking about making this a career.
Instead, while earning her undergraduate degree at Colgate Uni- versity, she was thinking about teaching and then working in the broad realm of education policy.
But she graduated into a tough job market in 2009 and eventu- ally moved to Boston with her husband, Trevor McEwen, who did manage to find work. She eventually secured some herself, working for a student health-insurance brokerage and consulting firm for three and a half years.
She learned a lot about business in that role, but decided she needed to further that education and earned an MBA, with a con- centration in marketing, at Babson College. With that degree, she sought work in education consulting and hospital operations, but “couldn’t find anything I loved.”
Meanwhile, Balise Motor Sales was opening another car wash in West Springfield, and her father, Jeb, its CEO, asked her to run some pro formas and work on the project.
“That was really interesting — I didn’t know anything about car washes, so I learned a lot there,” she said, adding that she spent most of her time on the Cape, where the company opened its first such facility.
To make a long story shorter, that learning experience would be the start of her career with the company, she said, adding that she moved on to a different project, the opening of a Kia store in West Springfield in 2016 after the company was awarded that franchise.
And during that project, Balise’s vice president of Marketing retired, and Alex was asked by then-President Bill Pepper to take over that broad realm.
She did, but while doing so, she became a hybrid worker long before that phrase came to be, working at her home in Framingham two or three days a week and driving to West Springfield the others.
“My father didn’t love that idea — he felt that a manager should be in the office every day,” she recalled. “He said, ‘how can I man- age these people if I wasn’t there every day?’ But I decided to do it
and see if we could make it work. And we did.”
To a Higher Gear
Balise eventually moved back to this area in 2018, putting her further away from the company’s dealerships in Rhode Island and on the Cape, but in a better place overall to oversee marketing for a steadily growing portfolio of auto-related businesses.
And some not auto-related.
Balise said the laundries, operating under the name Love Your Laundry, were her father’s idea, and the Springfield facility, right behind the company’s Mazda dealership, was seen as a way to help the residents of Springfield’s South End.
“It’s not something that we’re planning to blow up and have 25 locations, like the car washes, but if there are opportunities ... we’ll see where it goes,” she said, adding that she has plenty of other things on her plate, especially the duties that come with being direc- tor of Corporate Strategy.
Whatever the title on the business card might be, Balise said she will always be heavily involved in the community. In fact, opportuni- ties to do so comprised one of the larger reasons why she joined and then stayed with the company.
“I felt I could make a bigger impact through the family business than I could on my own if I worked somewhere else,” she told Busi- nessWest, adding this impact comes in many different forms.
One of them is playing a lead role in reviewing requests for sup- port from the area’s legion of nonprofits and deciding which direc- tions the Balise company’s philanthropic efforts will take.
It’s a huge responsibility and one she takes quite seriously.
“Having to say no is the worst — it’s tough,” she said, adding quickly that it’s even harder to say no when Balise doesn’t have guidelines for its giving.
“When you
have two young kids and you work, there
is no balance. Basically, when I’m not working, I’m focused on my kids and my family, and we trytofitinas much as we can and have dinner together.”
So the company — more specifically, her team — created some, addressing everything from areas of focus, such as youth, educa- tion, healthcare delivery,
and civic and community
32 APRIL 1, 2024 << WOMEN IN BUSINESS >>
BusinessWest
development, to how to Balise
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