Valley News – Bottom Line: Dairy Twirl entrepreneurs get into towing, automotive organization
When Brent Murray was a Lebanon paramedic, he commonly dealt with persons in disaster and urgent need to have of assist. He says that schooling is a fantastic track record for his most recent venture.
Murray and his wife and business enterprise companion, Cinnamon Murray, have accomplished back-to-again acquisitions of Bob’s Services Middle in White River Junction and Grizzaffi’s Towing & Restoration in Lebanon. That places the Murrays in command of a fleet of a dozen AAA-contracted tow vehicles, making them a single of the largest tow operations in the Higher Valley.
And also thrusts Brent Murray again into the rescue company.
“There are a whole lot of similarities in between operating as a paramedic and aiding motorists,” he observed. “Emergency roadside aid is really near to the glimpse and experience of being an EMT. You by no means know what you are likely to locate when you respond to a call,” adding that both include “helping people today in want.”
The Murrays are probably most effective recognized as the few who took in excess of Lebanon’s beloved tender-provide ice cream stand Dairy Twirl in 2013, a favored image-op for politicians on the marketing campaign path. Right up until 2018, they also owned a string of Verizon cellphone stores in New Hampshire and Vermont, which had been bought to Amcomm Wireless.
Brent Murray said he essentially started chatting with William “Billy” Grizzaffi, the late owner of Grizzaffi’s Towing, a couple many years in the past, prior to Grizzaffi was struck by a coach and killed in Maine last Oct. At the same time he was in talks with Grizzaffi, Murray claimed they ended up contacted by their business broker and informed that Bob Perkins, owner of Bob’s Service Heart, was retiring and wanted to provide his organization.
“We could build synergy by owning towing on both sides of the river, two areas,” Murray spelled out.
The Murrays also acquired Grizzaffi’s relevant organization, GT&R Car Sales and Provider in West Lebanon. They’re now renamed Montshire Towing and Montshire Automotive. But Murray claimed he will continue with the title Bob’s Support Center, which also encompasses a very regarded vehicle restore garage, propane organization and usefulness retailer.
Perkins is supporting the Murrays with the changeover but if not claimed he is on the lookout forward to everyday living in reduced equipment.
“I’ll be assisting out as finest I can for a whilst, a number of several hours a day till golfing time commences,” Perkins mentioned by using e mail final 7 days. “It will be 34 a long time in two weeks that I’ve been right here, 11 yrs in a management placement and then pretty much 23 as operator. Searching forward to perhaps a very little slower rate and a small additional absolutely free time.”
(The get-togethers declined to examine conditions of the transaction for the small business but Hartford serious estate records show Perkins marketed the support center authentic estate to the Murrays in February for $1 million).
Murray said that on the surface area there may not seem to be to be substantially in widespread with telephone shops, ice cream and towing. But in simple fact each and every of the corporations are grounded in the community and have purchaser service at the core, two conditions that are essential for the Murrays.
“It’s just the two of us that are powering almost everything we do,” Murray mentioned, conveying their business enterprise philosophy is “everyone is handled pretty and with respect. Regional possession is important.”
The Haynes administration has specified way to the Hoffman-Kiess administration.
Erika Hoffman-Kiess, who for the previous yr has been operating with Crucial Communities in the critical economy application, is the new govt director of Inexperienced Mountain Financial Progress Corp., taking above from Bob Haynes, who is retiring soon after 5 a long time as head of the regional advancement company and a virtually five-ten years career in industrial development in the Upper Valley and Vermont.
“It’s really large information in my lifetime,” Haynes explained, noting that he will carry on “part time” to guide the White River Junction-centered GMEDC on behalf of 3 projects he assisted start, which include a new little one treatment middle in Randolph, remediation of a brownfield website in Bethel and a solar landfill job in Thetford. “I’ll be occupied on some days, and other times I’ll be mowing and rowing.”
Haynes, who rowed at Dartmouth and stayed in the Upper Valley immediately after he graduated in 1973, estimates he labored with some 200 corporations in the 30-city GMEDC district with web-site acquisition, feasibility scientific studies, securing federal government and non-public financing and position coaching due to the fact he took in excess of from Joan Goldstein in 2015.
“I’ve enjoyed it immensely and fulfilled a large amount of people, but it is time for me to shift on,” Haynes said.
There was no shortage of candidates to discover his successor — 24 applications, 7 interviews (by using Zoom), two finalists and then “a unanimous by the board to go with Erika,” Haynes reported.
Hoffman-Kiess, a Vermont indigenous, experienced used far more than a 10 years doing work in Cambodia, Bangladesh and Pakistan in the international aid sector ahead of returning to her household point out to open up her personal consulting company specializing in financial and workforce improvement in 2010. At Critical Communities, she helped assemble a research demonstrating how buying nearby will help to strengthen the Higher Valley economic climate as effectively coordinate pandemic-similar information and facts for regional enterprises.
Amongst Hoffman-Kiess’ priorities at GMEDC will be encouraging collaboration amid Upper Valley corporations “to perform together toward broader group development.”
For lots of of its 41 a long time in organization, tunes instrument retail store Blue Mountain Guitar has been like a rolling stone.
To start with opening in 1980 as an acoustic guitar retailer in the basement of Lebanon Pet & Aquarium Centre, Blue Mountain Guitar relocated to the row of retailers in LaValley’s Colonial Plaza, then moved throughout the parking ton into the area previously occupied by Costumania ahead of closing in 2016 to become an on the web-only retail outlet.
But a yr later Blue Mountain Guitar opened a modest retail store across the highway from Colby-Sawyer in New London and then, in 2019, returned to West Lebanon with a retail store in Glen Highway Plaza.
Now Blue Mountain Guitar has moved yet again into what is its fifth site in West Lebanon: the place formerly occupied by lighting keep Illuminations, which has been vacant considering the fact that the retail store closed in 2018.
“We’re carrying out this so we can do all our delivery out of a single place,” reported Barb McKelvy, owner of Blue Mountain Guitar. The business, which experienced been shipping to on line consumers out of each its New London and West Lebano
n retailers, will now consolidate all warehousing and shipping out of West Lebanon, in which the new shop has two times the area as the former just one, McKelvy reported.
Blue Mountain Guitar also entered a new current market the past calendar year that is carrying out surprisingly very well (or maybe not so remarkably): video and audio equipment for on line Zoom online video phone calls, McKelvy experiences. (It is even achievable, in case you want to stream your personal basement climate report about the world-wide-web, to get a eco-friendly monitor at Blue Mountain Guitar.)
“There’s been a authentic demand for Zoom devices,” she says.
Make contact with John Lippman at [email protected].
