Pioneers in business
NWBM catches up with three local pioneering businesses
by Sara L. Geballe


The Blade Chevrolet dealership started in 1913
and was located on First Street in Mount Vernon.
Here, it is pictured in its second location on Third
Street, where the dealership stood from 1931-1974.
Its current location is next to I-5..

Our region’s business history is as rich as the soil on which community members built their businesses. And with good products and service, our local business pioneers have cultivated successful businesses that still thrive today.
Here is a look at three local pioneers in business.

Security Solutions NW
Established 1904
Industry: security systems, locks, safes, fire suppression
Location: Bellingham; second store just opened in Mt. Vernon
Managers: Jamie and Tobey Vos
Number of employees: 41
2006 revenue: ~$5 million

At 102, Security Solutions NW (formerly known as Bellingham Lock & Safe) is the oldest of our featured business pioneers. As the story goes, the original business opened its doors in 1904 and sold a combination of bicycles, locks and guns. It was jointly owned by Charlie Stanbra and Hugh Diehl until the latter became fascinated by Indian brand motorcycles and left to set up his own bicycle/motorcycle business. (Diehl later opened the first Ford dealership in Bellingham.) That left the locks and guns part of the business to Stanbra who later sold it to Charles Bus who in turn ran it until his death in the early 1950s. No one knows for sure when the business took on the name Bellingham Lock & Safe, but it was long enough ago that local phone numbers were just three digits long. Records can be found that show Bellingham Lock & Safe, then located on Railroad Avenue, with the tidy phone number of “9-4-0.”
Shortly after Bus’ death, Gus Newman bought the business, and in 1971 Jim Vos joined him as partner. In the early 1980s Vos became sole owner and moved the expanding business to its current location on the corner of North State and Franklin. Today, Jim Vos is still actively involved in the family business, but has turned the daily management over to his two sons – Jamie and Tobey.
Adding new, retaining old
Walking into Security Solutions today, customers will find the walls still covered with keys and locks of all shapes and sizes. Huge armored safes, some looking like they belong to a bygone era, still adorn the showroom floor. But in recent years the company has greatly expanded its scope and added several retail and service lines allowing the family business to grow and keep pace with new technologies. Those changes, Tobey Vos said, have all been “customer driven.”
It was customers, he said, who starting asking for burglar alarm systems, surveillance cameras and other home security devices. In short, Vos said, customers wanted to be able to make just “one call for a [complete] security center for their home.”
Currently, about 50 percent of the Security Solution’s $5 million in annual sales come from selling, installing and maintaining a wide variety of residential and commercial security systems including alarm systems, intercoms, hidden cameras and keyless entry devices. A second, fast-growing department is fire suppression. Security Solutions also sells, installs, inspects and services a full range of fire extinguishers, fire alarms and sprinkler systems.

New name fits modern era
As these more modern business lines have taken off, the Vos family decided it was time for a name change. As Jamie Vos put it, “Customers kept asking us: ‘What do you do?’” And since half the revenue stream was coming from security systems, it seemed to make sense to change the name to reflect that. But rest assured the well-known “Bellingham Lock & Safe” moniker still exists. It now refers to the retail portion of the business where folks can still walk in off the street to have a key made or their locks changed.
One manifestation of the company’s healthy growth is the recent opening of a second store on College Way in Mount Vernon. While the company used to consider Whatcom, Skagit and Island counties their service area, the Vos brothers now say they have customers from Alaska to Oregon and as far east as Spokane. Some of their customers include all 30 Haggen Food & Pharmacy stores, the Cruisin’ Coffee stands, and numerous federal facilities – like Fort Wainwright Army Base in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Customer service is #1
As for the keys (pun intended) to their success and longevity? Jamie replied instantly, “Customer service. It’s our number one priority. If you need service, we are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” Or as Tobey put it, “We’re in it for a long-term relationship, not a quick buck. We go the extra mile for every customer for a potential long-term relationship.”
A good example of that “extra mile” happens every Christmas. One of their commercial customers operates a retail business that is closed just one day a year. That business never needs to close or lock its doors except on December 25. “So every Christmas morning dad is here to personally verify [electronically] that all those doors are locked. This is something we are not asked or paid to do.” They just do it.

Won’t oversell
Another key to excellent customer service is not overselling, both brothers point out. After people experience a robbery they tend to overreact and come in saying, “I want Fort Knox,” Jamie said. “It is so easy to take advantage of people when they are vulnerable.”
A customer might be willing to fork over $15,000 for a full-blown surveillance system, when motion-activated lights are all they need to solve the problem. “We want to protect that relationship, get them the solution they need, and not oversell,” he added. One way they guard against overselling is by having a sales force that is largely not commission-based.
Jamie and Tobey Vos are justifiably proud of the extremely low turnover rate of their employees. They estimate about half their 40-person staff has been with them more than 10 years now.
In a business that is growing annually, Jamie said, “Our goal is to build relationships with new customers each year.” What they don’t want to do is “sell and walk away.” Or as Tobey put it, “We are stewards of our customers’ situations.”

Blade Chevrolet
Established 1913
Industry: sales and servicing of new cars, used cars and RVs
Location: Mount Vernon
Dealer: Mike Blade
Number of employees: ~ 70
2006 revenue: $47 million

Blade Chevrolet is “the oldest Chevy dealership in Washington,” according to Mike Blade. “My great grandfather, Carl, came over from Oslo, Norway before the 1890s.” With an aunt and uncle already living in La Conner, he went straight to Skagit County. “Carl left his parents for the New World,” Blade explained. “He was adventurous, I guess, and had that pioneer spirit.”
A blacksmith by trade, Carl first opened a blacksmith shop in La Conner. But as the 20th century rolled onward, he couldn’t help but notice that the horse-drawn carriages he worked on were growing scarcer, while the new Ford Model A’s and T’s were growing increasingly common. “He saw the writing on the wall,” Blade said. Seizing the opportunity, Carl opened his first dealership – a Ford dealership – in 1913 in La Conner.

Future in Mount Vernon, GM
By 1929, Carl could see that Mount Vernon, then a small town, would soon become the hub of Skagit County as commerce started shifting away from water routes toward railroad and overland transportation. So he moved the business inland and also switched from Ford to Chevrolet “because he felt they [GM] had a better line than Ford,” Blade noted. That same year, Carl’s son Walt graduated from the University of Washington and joined his father in the new Chevy dealership.
The first Blade dealership in Mount Vernon was located on North First Street near where Scott’s Bookstore now stands. But by 1931, the business had outgrown its location, so Carl and Walt moved it to a second Mount Vernon location at Second and Gates Streets. It stayed there until 1974 when Blade Chevrolet moved to its current location at 1100 Freeway Drive right off the Kincaid Street exit of I-5.

Never say never
Current owner Mike Blade never imagined he, too, would get into the family business. Growing up he recalls, “What dad did looked like the most boring business in the world. I said I would never, ever be in that business.” Mike tells his own sons today, “Never say never.”
In 1987, right before he got married Blade, got an urgent phone call from his father, Bill. “Dad called and said, ‘I really, really need somebody I can trust.’” Bill had just lost his office manager and needed to replace him immediately. Blade recalled telling his father, “Well, I’ll try it ...” That was 20 years ago.
When asked if his initial impression of how “boring” the car business was had changed, Blade replied it definitely had. “It’s not just about working on the showroom floor selling cars. It’s also parts, service, body shop, RV sales, used car sales. It’s like having six or seven different businesses that are all radically different from one another, but inter-related. You can’t get bored watching over six or seven businesses.”

It just feels safe
What makes Blade Chevrolet’s successful decade after decade? “Without a doubt, it’s our sales people,” Blade said. “We have wonderful, professional, dedicated, and knowledgeable sales people.” After all, he pointed out, “Customers can buy the same products anywhere.” But something seems to make Blade special, he added. “I hear this from everyone – customers, GM reps and sales reps. They all say we are totally different than any other place [dealership] they walk into. It just feels safe.”
Blade believes this philosophy of making customers feel safe and welcome harkens back to great grandfather Carl. It was during the Depression, Blade pointed out, and Carl was willing to sell people cars or fix them on credit, “knowing full well they wouldn’t be able to pay him back right away.” But Carl also knew, Blade said, “when times got better, what went around came around. Seeds were planted when times were tough.” Sure enough, when things got better, those seeds sprouted and Carl’s dealership took off.

‘Standards for excellence’
Today Blade Chevrolet sells, on average, about 50 new cars, 80 used cars, and 20 RVs per month. Sales figures for 2006, Blade shared, were $47 million. A special point of pride, he said, was meeting General Motors’ stringent “Standards for Excellence” for all four quarters of 2006, which, he said, “is very hard to do.”
A related key to success, Blade said, is developing employees by treating them well and supporting them. “If it’s just a job or just about the money, I doubt you’ll have long term employees,” he cautioned. “This is more than just a business.” Using a boat analogy, he added, “Everyone here is pulling the oar in the same direction.”
When asked about his own two sons, now 14 and 18, and whether they plan to join the family business someday, Blade replied honestly, “I want both my boys to be exposed to other opportunities and not just follow the path of least resistance … Time will tell.”

Draper Valley Farms, Inc.
Established 1935
Industry: chicken hatching, processing, packaging, and distribution
Locations: Mount Vernon, Lynden, Burlington, Renton and Chehalis
CEO: Rick Koplowitz
Number of employees: ~ 600
2006 revenue: ~ $80-100 million

“My grandfather, Joseph, came to Whatcom County from Draper, Utah, in 1935 and set up a farm in Lynden,” recounted Rick Koplowitz, CEO of Draper Valley Farms, Inc. The original farm was an egg hatchery that shipped its dairy fresh eggs all the way to New York City by railroad to feed folks in the Big Apple. Today that local egg farm has metamorphosed into a more than $80 million a year business that provides chicken meat to food stores throughout the Northwest as well as Hawaii and Alaska.
About 65 years ago, Joseph switched from the egg-hatching to chick-hatching business. He realized chicken meat was becoming an increasingly popular staple of the American diet and a good market to move into. At the Lynden farm, fertilized eggs would be hatched and day-old chicks collected and sent to other farms throughout the region to be raised for meat production.
When Joseph died in 1954, Koplowitz’s father, Arthur, and his uncle, Charles, took over the family business. The next big expansion occurred in 1972 when Draper Valley built a chicken processing plant on Jason Lane in Mount Vernon. That was the same year Rick Koplowitz joined the family business.

Contracts with 45 farms
Nowadays, the farm in Lynden still hatches plenty of chickens (about two-thirds of all Draper Valley birds sold). The day-old chicks are shipped off to some 45 different farms up and down the I-5 corridor where they are fed and raised for about 42 days. Then they are shipped to the Mount Vernon facility where they are slaughtered, processed and packaged. The packaged fryers are then shipped to another Draper Valley facility in Renton – a distribution plant – where the meat is weighed and price labels added. In 1983, the company built a feed mill in Burlington, and the following year the processing plant was enlarged. A second feed mill located in Chehalis was added in 2006. Today, all told, Draper Valley has about 600 employees and their locally grown chickens can be bought in virtually all major food stores throughout the Northwest.
While the largest of the pioneer businesses featured in this article, Koplowitz says “in the greater scheme of things, we are very small.” By this he means Draper Valley is small compared the national chicken brands – like Perdue, Foster Farms or Tyson. “I’m an $80 million a year company and Foster Farms is well over $1 billion,” he said. But even as a so-called “small” chicken producer, Draper Valley still processes about half a million birds a week. One way the Mount Vernon business has been able to compete successfully against the national giants, Koplowitz explained, is by taking advantage of niche markets.

National acclaim
One especially successful niche has been the development and expansion of a free-range chicken line, known as “Ranger.” While not organic, Rangers are raised on feed that contains neither animal byproducts nor antibiotics. The birds also have access to the outside. Demand for Rangers by area supermarkets and food co-ops has taken off, Koplowitz shared, with continued growth expected.
Further helping to spread the good word about Rangers was a glowing article in last month’s Consumer Reports singling out Draper Valley for their exemplary performance in chicken meat safety. Of all the free-range chicken brands from all over the country that Consumer Reports tested for the presence of harmful bacteria (like salmonella or campylobacter), only Draper Valley passed all their tests. As stated in the CR article:
“There was an exception to the poor showing of most premium chickens. As in our previous test, Ranger – a no-antibiotics brand sold in the Northwest – was extremely clean. Of the 10 samples we analyzed, none had salmonella ...”
A second market niche, Koplowitz said, is selling fryers to supermarket deli departments. More and more customers want to buy cooked, ready-to-eat whole chickens. What the delis want, he explained, are chickens that are all the same size. Draper Valley is happy to oblige.
When asked what has accounted for Draper Valley’s longevity, Koplowitz replied without hesitation: “Very good people that work very hard to keep us cost competitive.”
As for what will happen when the next Koplowitz generation comes of age? Koplowitz said simply, “There is no pressure on them [his children] to get into the family business. That becomes their choice.”

The Vos family has owned 102-year-old Bellingham Lock & Safe since the 1970s. The second generation, Tobey and Jamie, run the day-to-day operations for father, Jim.




Mike Blade, showing off a new Corvette, is the grandson of Blade Chevrolet’s original owner, Carl.