Tom Green is at the time in his life where he was starting to look for the proper exit strategy to begin retirement.
It came a couple years earlier than expected.
Green, along with his wife, Alisa, recently signed papers to sell Key Sport, a Rolla business institution the past 40 years.
The bulk of the Key Sport properties – its team division, sales staff and book of business – has been purchased by BSN Sports, the nation’s largest direct marketer and distributor of sporting goods to the school and league markets.
In addition, the screen printing division of Key Sport has been sold to Andrew Almany and will merge into Almany’s current screening business, Heart of the Ozarks Screen Printing.
According to Tom Green the transaction tentatively becomes effective as of Monday. The BSN Sports team division and Heart of the Ozarks Screen Printing business will both remain located in the current Key Sport site at 1300 South Bishop and both will continue to be open for walk-in orders. The retail end of Key Sport will close.
Simply put, BSN made the right offer at the right time.
“I was going to work until I was 75,” said Tom Green, who is age 72. “But I’ve always been willing to entertain the right offer. And BSN was hard to pass up. Then Andrew came on the screen print side.”
“I was contacted (by BSN) in late January or early February if Tom would consider selling the team side of the Key Sport business,” said Joe Gorman, Key Sport sales manager.
Green has had offers to sell in the past but refused, in part because there was not the assurance that the business would stay in Rolla and local jobs would remain here.
He believed the offer from BSN was the right fit, as most all the current 43 Key Sport employees will continue to have positions without being required to relocate.
Three of those employees have chosen to retire and four will lose their positions with the close of the retail store. The rest will be added to the BSN or Heart of the Ozarks staffs.
“I think one of the biggest considerations for Tom in selling the business were the people who worked for him over the years,” Gorman said. “A key for him was, ‘Will they be able to keep their jobs?’ Tom found an opportunity to sell the business and at the same time allow the majority of his employees to keep a job.”
Nine of the Key Sport staff will become BSN employees on the outside sales staff or as customer sales representatives. Gorman will be the branch manager.
The sales staff will include Gorman (30 years of experience), Mahaney (34 years), Jamie Sturgeon (32 years), Will Marshall (23 years), Gary Miles (16 years), Greg Thomas (eight years), Greg Nash (three years) and Brian Schafer (two years). Customer service rep includes Camerin Fester.
In all, 153 years of experience through Key Sport will be transferred over to the BSN team.
By the end of the month, Key Sport will be no more. But its legacy will remain in two different businesses.
“We’ve had a week or two of emotions,” Tom Green said. “I’m like, ‘What am I going to do now?’ But it is just time. Technology has passed me up. They said I can still come out every now and then to visit!”
