Business Is Booming

Episode 15-Alan Kilgo.mp3
Narrator: [00:00:01] Business is booming from the small mom and pops to the big industries. Our local businesses drive our economy and provide the products, services and jobs we depend on. Our host Jennifer McCurdy, brings us these stories as she visits with the business owners and leaders of Fort Payne and DeKalb County, Alabama. And now here's Jennifer.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:00:25] Well, welcome, everyone, to the Fort Payne Chamber of Commerce podcast. Business is booming and I am so excited today. Our guest is Alan Kilgo. He is on the chamber board of directors. He served as our board president two years ago, I think it was. And it's hard to let him go because he is a doer. You know, you have those people in the community who just get things done. They don't talk about it. They do it. And that's Alan Kilgo. So I thought it would be nice to have him on today to talk about why he serves on the chamber board of directors, how he's involved in our community and why it's important for others in the community to step up and be leaders within our community. So welcome, Alan. Thanks for joining me.

Alan Kilgo: [00:01:11] Thank you. I think my biggest problem is I can't say no to anybody.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:01:16] Well, I have to admit, his wife, Amy, who I'm friends with, has told me that before. So have I taken advantage of that just a little bit, maybe.

Alan Kilgo: [00:01:25] Well, I enjoy serving on the chamber board, and I just I care about our community and I like to see businesses come and thrive. So I like to help in that respect.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:01:38] Yeah. And you do a great job with that. We try to ask our board of directors to bring on new businesses, help us identify businesses who are not chamber members and kind of talk about the advantages of being a chamber member. And the main thing for, for I think Alan's and his from his perspective is he sees the value in being a Chamber member. Alan does a great job recruiting members. We'll call it recruiting and it's not really members, it's investors. And really the benefit I think goes back to the to the member. So you want to talk about how why you think that's important to be a chamber member?

Alan Kilgo: [00:02:13] Sure. I mean, I have a small retail hardware store and I've received a lot of support from the community buying local. And I try to go out and shop local myself and support other small businesses in town. You know, I like it. And I'll go by and I'll ask if they'd like to join the chamber. And I tell them it's the benefit to me is just being part of the community feeling, being a part of something and just being in touch with what's going on in the community.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:02:44] Right. And also having, you know, the resources of the chamber. I know a networking events provide good opportunities for people to meet others in the community and for lack of better words, I guess make transactional connections where you're swapping services or you you maybe didn't know about a service and you went to one of our networking events or one of our luncheon learns and you meet people that provide maybe a service you could use or you provide a service they could use.

Alan Kilgo: [00:03:13] Yeah, I mean, it's not I mean, there are tangible benefits, but, you know, that's for me, the biggest thing is just like you said, the, the connections you make and the people you meet and just building relationships.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:03:25] Yeah. And that's that is very important. You also are a lion. How long have you been in the Lion's Club?

Alan Kilgo: [00:03:34] I've been a Lion I think 19 years.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:03:37] 19 years.

Alan Kilgo: [00:03:38] And I'm about to roll off as the president of our local club. I've been president for the last two years. And, yeah, I'm very, very involved in that club. You know, our primary focus is on sight, in helping those in the community that can't afford glasses or eye exams. Assist them in that. But we also do support other charities locally. But it's a great group of men and women in the club.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:04:09] And you have grown that membership significantly, I feel like over the last few years, I know not you alone, but you do take initiative. I mean, when you're challenged to do something, I feel like you move it forward and you really take it to heart.

Alan Kilgo: [00:04:22] Well, we've we've had a couple of membership drives in the last few years and and that's really helped. And we've traditionally been an older, old fogey kind of guy.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:04:36] But know we are the youngest in the club for a while.

Alan Kilgo: [00:04:38] All right. Yeah. No longer. We have more women in the club. You the more people we have in the club, the more service we can do and the more people we can help. So I think the club is thriving right now.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:04:52] And. And the Lions Club. All of our civic clubs are amazing. But I know as I have been a Lion, I feel like I'm loosely a Lion. A Lion. Now, you do things in the community. You see you out there actually helping people and doing things like you did the sleep in Heavenly Peace. Is that what it's called?

Alan Kilgo: [00:05:16] Build a bed project? We did that. That was right before Covid, I guess. Yeah, that was a big community project.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:05:24] That was an amazing day. They built beds for children who have no beds to sleep in, right?

Alan Kilgo: [00:05:30] And we actually went out and installed some in Fort Payne in the county. Yeah. Well, with the assistance of their sleep in Heavenly Peace crew. Yeah.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:05:43] Which is wonderful.

Alan Kilgo: [00:05:44] We've sponsor a couple of kids to go to Camp Selah Harris every year, and that's a camp down in Alexander City Lake Martin They two childhood diabetes camp to help them cope with the with the diabetes.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:06:03] That's wonderful to. I know you've had some some of those children come back and have success stories and really enjoy it.

Alan Kilgo: [00:06:12] And yeah, we've actually had a couple of former Leo Club members from high school join this last week. Wonderful. That's good. That's encouraging.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:06:24] Yes, very encouraging. We're going to bring it back to your my supply for a minute. All righty. Now in your business, you're not just a first. I want you to tell me what what's your hardware store about how long you've been there. And then I want you to talk a little bit about how you touch a lot of the businesses in town through your service.

Alan Kilgo: [00:06:46] Well, I've I've been in business almost ten years now, and we've grown pretty good bit. We kind of cater to industrial folks here in town. We sell locally. We're branching out into the county some, but we cater to a lot of industrial type applications. But we, you know, we we do a lot of walk in business, you know, pretty much a full line hardware store.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:07:13] And I do know this, you have sleds when it snows.

Alan Kilgo: [00:07:18] You got to have those.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:07:19] Yeah. All hardware stores do. I mean, don't you think about the old downtown hardware stores for those those red cute little old sleds. Yeah. In the in the window.

Alan Kilgo: [00:07:30] I love that you can't have everything, but we try to. We do have a lot.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:07:34] Well, they're not wooden anymore, guys. They're, they're plastic. But who cares? They still work.

Alan Kilgo: [00:07:40] Yeah, we've got a variety of sleds.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:07:42] Yeah. Something unique to me, Alan, about my supply. And most of our small businesses in town is that it is relationship building. You're not just walking in a store trying to find a sales rep with no clue what you need or what where to find it. It's a store that's there for your convenience. Also, someone's there that can help you immediately help you find what you need. And if you don't have it, I know you've done this for me before. You'll order it and you'll get it in for me and even you'll come out. I don't know if I should say this, but since he's on our chamber board, he will help us with our maintenance needs as well. So that's not for everyone.

Alan Kilgo: [00:08:27] You know, we want to help people. You know, that's that's my main thing. I'm I'm all about helping people. So and all the the guys I've got a great bunch of guys at the store that we all try to help be people as best we can.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:08:41] So important and I can say the value of you working with our local industries to you're here in town, you can get the product to them fast, be a problem solver for them. Whereas if you had to order something to be shipped in from somewhere else, it just gets there. Maybe it's not what you really needed. They've got you kind of as that middleman.

Alan Kilgo: [00:08:59] I will say we stock certain items that are specialty items or, you know, specific to industry and don't mind stocking those if you know they're going to buy them. So it works out pretty well. Yeah.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:09:13] And our industries appreciate that. And getting back to the chamber. What do you feel like your life's going to look like when you roll off the chamber board? Which is coming up. And I'm sad about that.

Alan Kilgo: [00:09:28] Well, I don't think it'll be a whole lot different. I mean, I'm I'm still going to be at the same location and I'm still willing to help. So.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:09:36] So it's only on paper, really? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Okay, good.

Alan Kilgo: [00:09:40] I'll be glad to help you however I can.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:09:43] Alan is. You'll see him in town and you'll see me little my supply truck riding around with a new wrap.

Alan Kilgo: [00:09:49] Wrap on it from Excel Graphics.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:09:51] Nice. Yes. Accel Graphics is another chamber member and they're very always helpful to us and getting things installed or printed quickly, so we appreciate them. The biggest thing I think I want people to take away from our discussion is. A lot of people don't really know how to plug in, but there are so many ways to plug in and you don't have to have a ton of money to be an investor in downtown or in your community. You could be an investor in other ways by just being involved in the community through the Lion's Club, through the Rotary Club. Kiwanas optimist. Altrusa or more importantly, the Chamber. And so it doesn't take much. That's just a matter of your time and your commitment to do something nice for your community, and it benefits you as well.

Alan Kilgo: [00:10:48] Absolutely. You just just need to put in a little time to improve our community.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:10:54] Yeah, we have a lot of people constantly. Well, this is in general all over bashing this. I wish things would be this way or I wish things would be that way. And this is my broken record spill here. But the only way to get things to move forward is to be involved and have an active role in making things better, which you absolutely do. Alan You do not talk about making things better, and I've heard you say it. What do we need to do to get there? How can we make this happen? And not just how, but what can I do to help make it happen? So you're very appreciated and I have really enjoyed being on the chamber, having you on the chamber board as one of our leaders, and I am so excited that you're still going to be involved. And you know, I'll be calling you still for all my maintenance needs. Oh, please do.

Alan Kilgo: [00:11:45] I think you're you're an excellent director of the chamber and you do a good job just keeping businesses informed and keeping everybody plugged in. Yeah, I.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:11:55] Love what I do, and I hope I'm doing that. But I always try to remind our chamber investors or members however we want to call them that If there's something you need from the chamber that we're not doing, or if you have any questions, you just need to call us and tell us. We don't know if we don't know. Every chamber member's needs are different and most of them require the same things. But there might be something a little different that you would like to see us do that we're not doing that might benefit you. Let us know. We have all kinds of programs if you check out our website. Fort Payne chamber.com. Our events are listed there as long as well as resources. We have a business checklist. We have links to all the pertinent places you need to go when starting a business. And we even offer free business consultation at the chamber through JSU Small Business Development Center and that's once a month. So please keep up with what's going on. And that's a free service. You don't have to be a Chamber member for the JSU Small Business Development Center free consultation. All you have to do is sign up and come talk to them and free business advice. We have a lot of businesses who have been established for many years who still utilize that. The JSU Small Business Development Center, which to me is important, that shows that they are interested in growing and and continuing to do better in their business as we all should do. So thanks, Alan. Thanks for joining me today.

Alan Kilgo: [00:13:20] All right. Well, thank you for asking me. Yeah.

Narrator: [00:13:32] You've been listening to Business is Booming, a podcast brought to you by Fort Payne Chamber of Commerce. The host is Chamber Director Jennifer McCurdy, executive Producer Stephen V Smith. Our engineer is Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studios. Business is Booming is a production of Rare Life Media.