Pushing through COVID:
How Four Leading Rockland Businesses Have Endured Through the Crisis
This article examines how four leading Rockland businesses have navigated through the COVID-19 crisis. I spoke with Larry Beckerle of Beckerle Lumber, Joseph Rand of Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, Michael Khekoian of Computuners, and Howard Hellman of All Bright Electric.
I got to know each one of these leaders through my longstanding membership in the Rockland Business Association, whose mission is to advocate for and support Rockland businesses and who is now at the forefront of helping them through COVID and beyond. I am a board member of the Rockland Business Association and two of the subject companies, Beckerle Lumber and Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, are represented on the Board, as well.
In my conversations with these entrepreneurs for this article, it became clear that while each one cut their own path through the crisis, in doing so, every one of them relied on a close-knit team, a steady supply of optimism, and a spirit of generosity.
Larry Beckerle of Beckerle Lumber
By the time Larry Beckerle learned that he had the Coronavirus, eight of his employees had already been diagnosed. Beckerle is the President of Beckerle Lumber, a third-generation full-service home center with four locations in Rockland County. Notwithstanding the rash of illness, with the help of family and staff, and following safety protocols, the business continued to operate through the COVID crisis just as it had every day since its first store opened in 1940.
But even while pushing forward, Beckerle’s main challenge has been managing staff affected by illness and a business slowdown. When the shutdown orders were issued, Beckerle Lumber faced an initial downturn in customer traffic. Nevertheless, the company refused to lay off any of their 90 employees. After all, as Larry said, the employees are like a family within a family business. Many of them have worked for the company for four decades. Several couples met each other on the job and their children are now working in the business. So Beckerle, which prides itself on product knowledge and customer service, used the window of time during the slowdown in business to supplement employee training. And they set up remote courses for any staff working from home.
After the initial downturn, Beckerle Lumber has now seen an increase in demand for decking products and its Benjamin Moore paints, as people do improvement projects while stuck at home. Beckerle is adjusting its inventory and fortifying its website to meet the increased demand. And each of its stores have set up curbside pick-up and increased product delivery options.
To help him keep perspective in the COVID crisis, Larry Beckerle often reflects on his family’s long business history. Over its eighty-years, the company has weathered numerous storms. In 1959, the company’s Spring Valley store was destroyed by fire. The location opened for business the very next day with the help of competitors and customers. Years later, when Lowe’s set up a store near Beckerle’s Orangeburg location, Larry, undaunted, advertised his place as “across the street from Lowe’s.” And he promoted Beckerle’s long tenured staff and better product pricing. In the end, Beckerle garnered new customers drawn from out of town visitors who originally intended to go to Lowe’s.
For Beckerle Lumber, the crisis has brought home their company values: “Our customers are our neighbors. Our staff is our family.” Once Larry recovered from the virus, he resumed working with the Rockland County Salvation Army Business Advisory Board. He and his brother Michael, along with their father, also have leadership roles in Rotary International, which is dedicated to “service above self.”
Joseph Rand of Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty
In the initial sweep of the Coronavirus, Joseph Rand, Managing Partner of Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, a second-generation family business that is one of the largest real estate brokerages in the United States, focused immediately on others around him: his real estate agents, clients, and the community. The company touchstone “focus on other people’s needs and find creative ways to meet those needs,” became an imperative in the crisis.
First, Joseph, his brothers Matt and Dan, and their mother Marsha, all co-owners of the company, immediately forewent any salary. And Joseph compiled a myriad of resources and webinars for the company’s hundreds of real estate agents, to help them access newly available financial relief through the CARES Act.
Always an innovator, Joseph had long prepared his agents for a digital shift. When the crisis hit, they were ready to pivot to online services. Agents conducted live stream open houses and hosted virtual showings giving listings visibility and offering buyers an efficient way to see multiple properties. And closings have been taking place digitally using e-signatures. Rand believes that all of these changes will remain as part of the business even after the virus recedes.
Through it all, he has maintained his optimism about the business. Although business fell in the range of 50% from its pre-crisis record highs, Joseph is confident that the industry will rebound. Any slowdown, he believes, will be offset by pent-up demand. “Anyone that wanted to buy a house before the crisis, will still want to after this is over; and maybe more so,” he said.
What’s more, the crisis has borne out what Rand always knew about the strengths of being part of a family business. “The advantage is a level of trust among the partners. No one hesitated to give up their salary [when COVID hit]. We know that everyone is looking out for the good of the family and the business,” he said.
In the meantime, Rand and his family have redoubled their community involvement. Joseph set up a “Walk the Rock” fundraising event, to benefit Good Samaritan and Montefiore Nyack Hospital, in which he trekked 13 miles on foot from Nyack to Suffern. He raised $15,000 through the event. He is also working on a Reopen Nyack campaign to help brick and mortar retailers recover and get the word out about their businesses and the Nyack community. His brother, Matt Rand, a board member of People to People, the County’s largest food bank, has been working tirelessly to meet the rising tide of hunger in the wake of the crisis.
Michael Khekoian of Computuners
Michael Khekoian is a co-owner and the CEO of Computuners, a rapidly growing managed IT service provider with a computer showroom, repair shop, recycling center, and data storage facility. He and his team spent the early days of COVID assisting individual customers and thousands of business clients to adapt to new work-from-home requirements seamlessly. Working from home laid bare for customers the need for a stable and secure IT solution, and Computuners was there to meet that new need and, as Michael says, to “help customers future proof.”
Also, Michael set up a responsive answering system to route a new influx of support calls and ensure that every call is immediately handled. Then he took the company’s massive showroom inventory fully online and instituted contactless computer curbside pick-up and drop off.
And Computuners has been helping essential workers during the crisis by giving them discounts and priority IT support. “They are putting their lives at risk; when they come home after a long day helping others, they shouldn’t have to deal with a computer issue,” Khekoian noted.
Even with all the change, Michael still insisted that his entire 15 person staff stick to its weekly meeting schedule, albeit remotely. In the three years leading up to the virus, the whole team met every Monday morning. Michael believes that this single weekly event has been directly responsible for the meteoric rise of the company. He said “I don’t know why every business doesn’t do this. Why wouldn’t you want everyone together, communicating? Every employee is valuable. Each one of them contributes insights that help our whole staff and our customers. Their ideas are often things that we might not have otherwise thought of.”
Howard Hellman of All Bright Electric
For Howard Hellman, owner of All Bright Electric, when COVID hit he had to call on all of the emergency management skills he learned as a long-time volunteer member of the ambulance corps. In the early part of the pandemic, many of All Bright’s projects were postponed or cancelled, and new work dried up. At one point, business was 25% of where it was pre-virus. In the face of that, Hellman triaged the impacts of the virus on the company: he redeployed staff and cut his own salary.
And Hellman used the slowdown to catch his breath and look at the future of his business. Having started All Bright as a teenager doing odd jobs, Howard had grown the company to nearly 100 employees providing commercial and industrial electrical maintenance, construction, and service work in the Hudson Valley and northern New Jersey; but that pace of expansion rarely left him with time to reflect. The crisis gave him new found freedom to reimagine the future of the business and focus on new or more profitable areas. “We are always looking to grow, even now” he said.
Hellman is preparing for long term changes in construction design. He expects that after the virus, large facilities, such as hospitals and dormitories, which are one of All Bright’s primary market sectors, will be reengineered to avoid future outbreaks. He thinks that social distancing, improvements to ventilation, and safety precautions are here to stay. He is aligning his business to help facilities meet those new demands.
In the meantime, Howard’s philanthropic work has continued through the crisis. Bridges, a not-for-profit dedicated to helping people with disabilities, was scheduled to relocate offices in what turned out to be the middle of the pandemic; he and his team continued to work on the move notwithstanding the virus. He also supports the Rockland Community College Foundation which has raised scholarship funds for students in need in the crisis. And he is part of the Workforce Investment Board which is assisting those who are newly or long term unemployed.
What We Learned
In looking at how each of these business leaders pushed through the COVID crisis, what shines through is their willing self-sacrifice for the good of their team, embrace of optimism in adjusting the course of their businesses, and their continuing deep commitment to their community. Even though each one of our own businesses is different from those profiled, every one of us can adopt these entrepreneurs’ determination and generosity. Doing as they do will help us all get through the COVID crisis.
