Springfield Technical Community College President Andrew M. Scibelli has announced that ten individuals will make up the first group of inductees into the Western Massachusetts Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame will be located at the Springfield Enterprise Center, the small business incubator located in the STCC Technology Park.

The inductees are Frank S. Beveridge, the founder of Stanley Home Products;
Curtis and S. Prestley Blake, founders of the Friendly Ice Cream Corporation;
Zenas Crane, who built the Crane Paper Company Mill in Dalton;
Gerald and Paul D’Amour, the founders of the Big Y supermarket chain;
Joseph J. Deiso, Sr., chairman of HBA Cast Products,
Michael Kittredge, the founder of Yankee Candle Company;
Albert G. Spalding, who founded the company that became Spalding Sports Worldwide;
Rita Tremble, the founder of what is now Valley Communications Systems in Chicopee.

In making the announcement, President Scibelli noted, “All those named to the Hall of Fame have built businesses that have had a significant impact on the economy of Western Massachusetts and the quality of life in our area. Their entrepreneurial spirit will serve as an inspiration to future entrepreneurs in the Springfield Enterprise Center and throughout the region.”

Frank Stanley Beveridge was a native of Canada who came to Western Massachusetts in 1900 to enroll at the Mount Hermon School in Northfield. He arrived in Western Massachusetts with a quarter, a dime and a Canadian dollar. Beveridge became the director of sales for the Fuller Brush Company in Hartford and in 1933 he founded Stanley Home Products in Westfield, with the concept of selling quality homecare products door to door. He established the Beveridge Foundation in 1947, and two years later founded Stanley Park, which now occupies 300 acres in Westfield.

In 1935, during the Great Depression, 20 year-old Prestley and 18 year-old Curtis Blake borrowed several hundred dollars from their parents, opened a business in Springfield’s Pine Point section, and called it “Friendly.” It was five years before the Blake brothers opened another store. Forty-four years after the first Friendly Ice Cream Shop opened, the company had over 500 locations. Today, Friendly’s remains headquartered in Wilbraham and is entering the international market. The Blake brothers’ commitment to philanthropic causes is evidenced throughout the greater Springfield area.

The Crane family emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1648. In 1775, Stephen Crane sold currency paper to engraver Paul Revere. It was on that paper that Revere printed the American colonies’ first currency. Stephen’s son Zenas Crane began looking for a spot for a paper mill in 1799. In 1801 the first Crane paper mill opened in Dalton, Massachusetts, making paper with cotton fibers. Crane and Company, the sole supplier to the U.S. Treasury of paper for U.S. currency, is still headquartered in Dalton and operated by the Crane family.

In 1936 Paul D’Amour left his job as a salesman for the Wonder Bread Baking Company and purchased the “Y Cash Market” in the Willimansett section of Chicopee, Massachusetts. Paul and his brother, Gerald started with a 900 square foot store, considered small by 1936 standards. The entire D’Amour family became involved in the business. Today, that small market has grown into 46 stores, including 25 Big Y World Class Markets and a new corporate headquarters in Springfield. Big Y and the D’Amour family are legendary in the region for charitable work. Through various in-store programs and vendor-sponsored events, Big Y has donated millions of dollars to scholarships, computer hardware for students and schools, and a number of charities.

Joseph J. Deliso, Sr., a native of Ozone Park, Long Island, moved to Springfield in 1939. The owner of Deliso Construction Company, he purchased the Hampden Brass Company in 1941. Now HBA Cast Products Inc., the company includes plants in Bristol and Chatham VA as well as Mexico, and was established in 1903. Deliso was the former president of Pioneer Valley Refrigerated Warehouse Inc. of Chicopee, the former Tootkraft Corp. of Enfield, Maple High Realty Corp., and Colony Court Trust Co. He is known as a benefactor to educational and health institutions in western Massachusetts, including Springfield Technical Community College, Western New England College, and Mercy Hospital.

Yankee Candle Company was born in 1969 in the kitchen of Michael Kittredge’s home in South Hadley, Massachusetts. As a teenager, Kittredge made candles in jars for family and friends. The business grew to an old factory in Holyoke, then to a location in South Deerfield, Massachusetts that has become a showplace and one of the most visited attractions in Massachusetts. Yankee Candle Company has 121 stores in 32 states, accounts in over 12,500 gift stores, and also sells its products through catalogs and on the Internet. The company is continuing its growth and plans to open 40 additional retail stores throughout the United States each year for the next several years. Under Kittredge’s leadership, Yankee Candle began what is now a rich tradition of supporting worthwhile causes in western Massachusetts.

Albert Goodwill Spalding was born in Byron, illinois in 1850, and as a young man, was enamored with the new game of baseball. He was clerk in a grocery store in Rockford, Illinois earning $5.00 a week when he was offered the unfathomable sum of $2,500 a year to play baseball. His family convinced him to remain in business and turn down the baseball offer. He later was able to combine both interests, and pitched professionally for the Boston Red Stocking and Chicago White Stockings. Spalding won 241 of the 301 games he pitched in 1871-75, frequently working with a ball he had developed. His business acumen allowed him to found Spalding in 1876 as a sporting goods store in Chicago. Today, with headquarters in Chicopee, Massachusetts, Spalding Sports Worldwide is the oldest full-time sporting goods company in the United States, with affiliate companies in Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, and Sweden. The name Spalding, on basketballs, golf balls, baseballs, footballs, tennis rackets, and more, is synonymous with quality in the sports world.

Rita M. Tremble founded Valley Cinema in 1945 as a motion picture company, distributing and showing war bond movies, and moving on to sell and service projection equipment and camera supplies. Her interest in electronics started early; as a child of seven, Rita built the family’s first radio from an oatmeal box, copper wire, and mica. With a pair of headsets, the family listened to KDKA, the country’s first radio station, in Pittsburgh. After graduating from the High School of Commerce, she took several courses in electricity, and later participated in the first demonstration of a television set at the New York City World’s Fair. Over the years, Valley Cinema expanded to provide for the audio-visual needs of the New England region, and by the 1970’s began engineering large-scale sound and intercom systems and then entered the telephone business, competing directly against AT&T. Today, Valley Communications occupies a 40,000 square foot facility in Chicopee and provides fully converged voice video and data systems. The mother of 10 children, Mrs. Tremble has also been very active in the community through volunteer work, also serving as the first woman elected to the Hampden County Commission. In 1988 she was selected by Venture Magazine as Entrepreneur of the Year. Now, with her fellow inductees, Mrs. Tremble wifi be honored as a permanent member of the Western Massachusetts Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame.