Looking to the Future

Henry and Abigail Osmer helping with Ford’s shop clean this summer 

Two of my children worked at Grappone Automotive this summer – the business their great-great-grandparents started in 1924 –  and enjoyed it very much. Our 17-year-old daughter Abigail worked part-time as a lot attendant at the Mazda store, and her older brother Henry, 18, was full-time working in almost all our departments at different stores. 

When I was growing up, it was made clear to me that I didn’t have to join the family business. In fact, my mother stressed that it isn’t easy, and that maybe I should try something else (raising five kids while going to nursing school and taking in foster children while your spouse is at work most waking hours will have that effect on a woman!) I spent my teenage summers doing what I was qualified to do at Grappone, which meant delivering mail, filing, and “helping” in accounting. The quotes capture that I was more hindrance than a help, but at the time, I wasn’t aware that we all have unique and special talents, and mine do not include making sense of numbers while smiling.

And so I went about my life, coming and going from Grappone as time permitted. I attended UNH, where I studied humanities and foreign languages; I worked for North Carolina Outward Bound; I tutored kids in math (what??), French, and German; and I dropped Grappone like a hot potato just after 9/11 and went west for more than two years. All in all, I’ve been blessed to have many different experiences throughout my life, and ultimately, they have all pointed me back to one thing: I really, really like people.

As my children look to their own careers, I am grateful that I can call on my own experience as a guide. I tell them that as long as they’re honest, kind, confident, and curious, I will support whatever they choose to do. Seeing them at work this summer gave me a boost of confidence that the fifth generation of Grappones has the right hearts and minds to see the company through to their kids’ generation. If they choose to serve Grappone Automotive, they will be well served by them. I invite you to come visit our 101-year-old family business so you can feel for yourself what a commitment to building lifelong relationships is all about. Grappone. Driven by people.