Area Businesses Selected for Induction into 2008 Western Mass. Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame at STCC
Five individuals or organizations from the past or present of this region have been selected for induction into the Class of 2008 of the Western Massachusetts Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, located at the Andrew M. Scibelli Enterprise Center at Springfield Technical Community College.
The announcement was made at a May 22 reception at the Colony Club in downtown Springfield. The formal induction will take place on Thursday, Oct. 2, with an induction banquet at the Log Cabin Banquet and Meeting House in Holyoke.
The Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame was created in 2000 to recognize the entrepreneurial heritage of Western Massachusetts, honoring individuals and organizations who have become part of that heritage, and to raise money to support programs that will foster future generations of entrepreneurs.
Proceeds from the banquet are used to support STCC’s 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.
The members of the Class of 2008 are:
- Baystate Health, the region’s largest health system and largest employer;
- Arthur Jacobson, founder of OMG Inc., formerly Olympic Manufacturing Group, and later, owner of Mr. Shower Door;
- The Samble Family, founders and owners of the Springfield-based Belmont Laundry chain;
- The Scherff Family, long-time operators of the Student Prince, or Fort restaurant in Springfield;
- The Young Family, founders and owners of the W.F. Young Co.
Baystate Health
Baystate Health, the region’s largest health care system, which can trace its roots back to 1883, has a long traditional of entrepreneurial spirit and risk-taking, with many examples from the past several years.
These include the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute, a joint venture with UMass Amherst that was created in 2004 to develop new approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of disease; the D’Amour Center for Cancer Care, the only free-standing cancer care facility in the region; an ambitious $239 million expansion project, the ‘Hospital of the Future,’ which is due to begin this fall; and a series of developments along North Main Street in Springfield.
These developments have taken place in what were once-thriving manufacturing complexes that fell silent in the 80s and 90s, and would probably still be vacant today were it not for the vision and the determination of those at Baystate, who invested more than $125 million to create what it calls the Northern Edge Medical Campus.
The latest expansion is perhaps the largest in the history of the system, which can trace its origins back 125 years to the opening of Springfield Hospital. In 1974, what was then known as Springfield Hospital Medical Center merged with its neighbor, Wesson Women’s Hospital, to create the 672-bed Medical Center of Western Massachusetts. In 1976, this entity merged with Wesson Memorial Hospital, located about two miles away. The merger established Baystate Medical Center, then the second-largest hospital in New England, with 1,036 beds.
In 1983, Baystate Medical Center was reorganized into three separate corporations: Baystate Health Systems, the parent corporation now renamed Baystate Health; Baystate Medical Center; and a for-profit corporation known as Baystate Diversified Health Services.
The Baystate Health family has grown significantly since its inception. In 1986, Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield joined Baystate Health; in 1991, Baystate Mary Lane Hospital in Ware joined the health system. In 1996, the Visiting Nurse Association & Hospice of Pioneer Valley, now renamed the Baystate Visiting Nurse Association & Hospice, became a member of Baystate Health.
Arthur Jacobson
He called his innovation the “roofle.”
That’s the name Art Jacobson came up with for a new product he contrived back in 1981 to suit the needs of one of his clients. At the time, Jacobson was a manufacturer’s representative for companies that made bolts, rivets, and other products. That client asked Jacobson if he could create a different kind of fastener, unlike anything then on the market,that could be used for roofs.
That conversation, and Jacobson’s desire to meet his client’s request, eventually led to what Jacobson called a “fluke of a business,” today known OMG Inc., formerly the Olympic Manufacturing Group, which boasts more than $150 million in annual sales worldwide.
Jacobson contrived the “roofle,” by taking long bolts that he sold to a wooden-rail manufacturer and attaching toggle wings and large washers to them. After the client pronounced it exactly what he was looking for, Jacobson secured a patent for his product, and would eventually go into business with his wife, Esther.
The Jacobsons started small, but with the help of some young and also entrepreneurially- minded people, they grew the business quickly. Those individuals included Hugh McGovern, who would later become president of Olympic and OMG, after Jacobson sold it; Dan Murphy, who eventually would become president of a succession of larger owners of OMG; and Tom Wagner, OMG’s senior vice president.
Together, they have grown OMG into the nation’s leading manufacturer and supplier of roofing fasteners and related products, a company with more than 200 employees nationally. Last year, the company completed the acquisition of a division of Illinois Tool Works and opened what is now known as OMG West.
After selling Olympic in 1996, Jacobson would later go on to acquire Mr. Shower Door and triple sales of the Agawam-based venture, which has now has three locations.
The Samble Family
Belmont Laundry has been doing business from the same location on Belmont Avenue in Springfield for 101 years, or since Harry Samble and his wife, Corrine, went into business together picking up delivering what was then called “wet wash.”
The two would pick up dirty laundry, hand wash it, and deliver it back wet, to be dried by the client outdoors. The two started doing business by bicycle, then horse and buggy, before getting a truck.
The business has evolved and expanded considerably over the past century, and has grown through the efforts of four generations of the Samble family. Harry Samble would die young, and it fell to Corrine and the second generation, sons Robert and Harry Jr., to carry on.
And when Robert Samble also died young, it was his wife, Dorothy, eventually to be joined by her son, Robert Jr., who led Belmont Laundry to a period of great expansion in the 80s and 90s. Today, the business is officially a chain, with two locations in Springfield, and others in Agawam, West Springfield, and Longmeadow.
Belmont now has a fleet of trucks, more than 50 employees, and handles more than 1,000 commercial accounts in a service area stretching from Newport, R.I. to Pittsfield.
Today, two of Robert Samble Jr.’s children, sons Matthew and Derek, have lead roles with the company, as does Sambles’s stepdaughter, April Caruso.
The Scherff Family
The Student Prince restaurant, also known as the Fort, has been a Springfield institution since 1935.
It has become part of the fabric of the city due largely to the efforts of the Scherff family, which has owned and managed the landmark on Fort Street since the early ‘60s and continued many time-honored traditions.
Indeed, the Fort is known for many things, including its two names — ‘Student Prince,’ taken from a Sigmund Romberg operetta about student life in Heidelberg, and ‘the Fort,’ the name given the main dining room, in recognition of the fort John Pynchon built on the site in 1660 — and also an extensive collection of beer steins, its veal shank, scrod, and Roquefort salad dressing.
It all started back in 1935 with Paul Schroeder, a native of Germany and cigar maker by trade. After working at several area cigar factories, he took a job as the housemaster of the Springfield Turnverein, a German club that continued to serve its members libations during Prohibition. After repeal of the Eighteeth Amendment in 1933, Schroeder saw an opportunity to start his own business, and did so, partnering with Erna Sievers in the Student Prince restaurant on Fort Street.
Rupprecht Sherff would eventually take a job there in 1949. He had come to the U.S. from Germany years earlier, at the behest of Robert Jarhling, owner of the Highland Hotel in Springfield, whom Scherff had impressed while he waited on Jarhling and his wife when they were visiting Bremen. Scherff worked at the Highland for many years and later fought in World War II before coming to the Student Prince. He started in the kitchen and was eventually asked to manage the restaurant. When Sievers died in 1961, she left the establishment to Scherff and another employee, Tante Grete, whom Scherff bought out in 1971 to assume sole ownership.
A decade later, he would become sole owner, and polish what was already a gem into one of Springfield’s most recognizable landmarks.
Today, three of his children, Rudi and Peter Scherff and Barbara Meunier, carry on the traditions. They were recently jointly by a fourth generation — Barbara’s son Michael is kitchen manager and Rudi’s son (also named Rudi) works in the deli.
The Young Family
Wilbur F. Young was a piano salesman in the early 1890s, and enjoying some success at that trade. But he wanted something different, something more entrepreneurial for a career path.
He found that something else through his love of horses — and some encouragement from his new bride, Mary Ida. The product that Wilbur developed and that the couple made in a tub in their farmhouse kitchen, would come to be called Absorbine Veterinary Liniment. A blend of herbs and essential oils, the liniment would keep a horse from going lame while gently reducing swelling and stiffness.
More than 116 years later, the liniment remains the flagship brand marketed by W. F. Young Inc., a company credited with coining the phrase ‘athlete’s foot’ and, over the years, developing a wide array of health care products. Today, the company, which, after spending most of its existence in downtown Springfield, moved to East Longmeadow in 2000, is a global marketer of products for humans and animals.
Its success has been the result of the hard work of five generations of the Young family — fourth-generation president Tyler Young is currently at the helm — and it has proven Wilbur Young’s father wrong. The elder Young thought his son wasn’t smart to be giving up piano sales for horse liniment, so when Wilbur went to his dad for a $500 loan to expand the business, the father agreed, but stipulated that his son identify himself from that point forward with the initials PDF — Pa’s Darn Fool.”
Today, the company typically introduces between five to 10 new products a year, said Tyler Young, adding that recent additions include DuraGuard® and Bug Block® insect repellents for horses, the innovative Stall Safe® brand disinfectant and sanitizer for stables and stalls, and Myoplast®, an amino-acid supplement which helps provide strength and stamina in horses while supporting lean muscles.
More than a decade ago, the company transitioned out of manufacturing and now bills itself as a virtual marketing company. Production of the entire network of brands is outsourced throughout the U.S.; the operations department of the company manages production from the company headquarters in East Longmeadow.
Steering Committee
The chairperson of the 2008 Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame steering committee is Andrew M. Scibelli, President Emeritus of Springfield Technical Community College. He led the team that created the Technology Park at STCC, located in the former Digital Equipment complex, and later, the Enterprise Center. Upon his retirement in 2004, the college renamed the Enterprise Center in his honor.
As many as 500 civic and business leaders are expected to attend the Oct. 2 banquet. For more information on this year’s dinner event, contact Thomas A Goodrow, STCC Vice President for Economic and Business Development; (413) 755-4500.