SBA NEWS RELEASE

Release Date: June 4, 2008

Contact: Kate Herrington (802) 828-4422

Reynolds and Son Selected as Vermont’s
2008 Family-Owned Business of the Year

Having worked his way from the bottom up and being the owner’s only son, Bruce Seel expected to one day own the business, Reynolds and Son, in S. Barre.  Starting in his junior year of high school, he worked summers, weekends and holidays in what was then the Reynolds warehouse in Barre.  Seel traces his start to 1972 when his father, Fred Seel, purchased the business.  At that time, Ted Goulette was already working there, having been hired at age 16 by former owner Cleora Reynolds.  Both Seel and Goulette went on to college, and as young men, both returned to work at Reynolds, each fully expecting to own the business at some future point.  Bruce Seel came by the expectation naturally, and Goulette, re-hired by Bruce’s father, had been given an offer of possible ownership as part of the deal. 

It was the perfect plot for conflict, but the relationship took a totally different direction.  Without animosity, Seel and Goulette worked side-by-side for the next 15 years and in 1986, stood up together in a year-end meeting to say they wished to buy the business.  The timing was dead-on, because Seel’s father was considering retirement.  “My father knew very well that we weren’t wealthy, so we had to buy it out of the proceeds we generated going forward,” Seel said.  In a flurry of paperwork, the deal was closed before the new year, and Seel and Goulette purchased the company at 51% and 49%, respectively. 

Nominated by Dann Van Der Vliet, Director of UVM’s Vermont Family Business Initiative, Bruce Seel and Ted Goulette, co-owners of Reynolds & Son, an industrial supply business in S. Barre, have been selected as the 2008 winners of the SBA Family-Owned Business of the Year award.  The award honors a family-owned-and-operated business which has been passed on from one generation to another.  Not unexpectedly, succession planning is currently underway for Goulette’s 30-year-old son, Todd Goulette, vice president of sales.  Todd, a UVM Business School graduate, has been employed by Reynolds for well over ten years.  Reynolds and Son was selected on the basis of sales and profits, employment opportunities and long-term economic growth. 

Commenting on the company’s dual ownership, Goulette said, “Bruce’s father felt that two people owning the company would probably be better than one, and he was right.” 

“If I can use an analogy, Ted’s head is in the clouds, my hands are on his ankles, and my feet are on the ground,” Seel said with a laugh.  “Between the two of us, it works pretty well.”

Together, they’ve developed a strong customer base, paid off their debts, and the business appears to be thriving with a staff of 30 employees.  The company owns its 17,000 sq. ft. building in S. Barre, which houses the main office, display area and warehouse, plus a 7,000 sq. ft. warehouse and display facility in Rutland, and maintains a sales office in

South Burlington. 

Reynolds and Son was founded in 1874 by George Reynolds as a quarry and mill supply store grounded in the Barre granite industry.  It continued through 3 generations of the Reynolds family until Fred Seel’s purchase in 1972, when he shifted the company’s focus to statewide industrial markets.  Since then, the business has diversified into 3 main product and service divisions:  the Industrial Division, catering to industrial, construction and municipal organizations; the Compressed Air Division, providing sales, parts and servicing for air compressors and related components, and the Safety Plus Division, delivering service and products to fire departments, law enforcement organizations, and EMS and rescue units. 

Asked how current and future trends might affect their business, Seel said, “In Vermont, intellectual business is on the rise and manufacturing is on the decline, so we’ve seen our customer base shrink fairly substantially over the years.”  To reinforce and grow their business connections, Seel said they are offering value-added applications such as client inventory and restocking programs to free up their clients for production.  According to Goulette, Reynolds’ personalized customer services have helped establish customer loyalty and in several cases, provided an opening for nationwide sales.  “During an emergency, we serviced a local operation very well, and as a result, they put us in touch with the parent company,” Goulette said.  “Now we supply a nationwide retail corporation.”

In another case, a manufacturer that had been selling direct asked Reynolds to take on a particular product line.  “We took on the line and grew the business to a level that allowed the creation of our Safety Plus division,” Goulette recalled.  “We are proactively moving forward with what we think are the right formulas, but we’re still very much about dealing one-on-one with the customer,” he added.  Reynolds markets and sells through on-site visits from its sales staff, as well as website (reynoldsandson.com) and internal sales through telephone communication. 

In fact, the Reynolds brand of customer service goes way beyond its borders into the community at large.  For example, as a member of the Barre Rotary Club, Goulette recently completed a trip to Honduras, his third, in which he participated in the Vermont Rotary Club’s “Hands to Honduras-Tela” (H2H-Tela) program.  Among the projects sponsored and completed by H2H-Tela is the building of schools and a physical therapy center for children. 

Ted Goulette’s wife, Barbara Goulette, is involved in community projects as well.  On a recent Saturday morning and under Barbara’s leadership, the Reynolds warehouse received 1,600 cases of Girl Scout cookies.  By the end of the day, all 1,600 cases had been distributed to local Girl Scout leaders.  Barbara Goulette is also a long-term Reynolds employee, now serving as company treasurer. 

Bruce Seel and Ted Goulette were honored for their accomplishments by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) at a ceremony sponsored by Vermont Business Magazine.  The event took place at Burlington’s Waterfront Park, June 4, 2008, 4:00 to 7:00 p.m.