Finalists
BRIDGEWAY
SENIOR HEALTHCARE
A partnership between the Pelligrino and Rivera-Dugenio families has made this Bridgewater company a top health care-service provider for New Jersey seniors. In 1981, Anthony Pelligrino, a financial planner, and Dr. Rebecca Rivera recognized their potential synergies and decided to develop a nursing home. Today, Bridgeway Senior Healthcare is co-owned by Pelligrino’s son, Donald, and Rivera’s son, Jon Dugenio.
They operate three facilities, providing assisted living, rehabilitation care, long-term nursing, and home health services. Bridgeway delivers what Pelligrino and Dugenio call “the continuum of care”—everything a senior would need, seamlessly provided.
“The key is in the operation,” says Pelligrino, 50, of Bridgewater. “The quality of care has been built since the beginning through quality nurses and quality aides.”
The elder Pelligrino and Rivera still serve as chairman and president, respectively. “They’ve become the sound of reason and are able to slow us down enough so that they can continue to help us expand,” says Pelligrino.
With close to 400 employees, Bridgeway plans to build a new Hillsborough campus within two years and to expand into Monmouth County within five. “Don and I were both here when the first brick was laid,” says Dugenio, 41, also of Bridgewater, “and we’re still in the trenches every single day.”
“For family businesses in health care, it is important to be personal,” says Pelligrino. “People like the idea that they deal with Jon and Don.”
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VERREX CORPORATION
“In family business, you either love it or you hate it, and I am doing what I love,” says Thomas Berry Jr., third-generation president of Verrex, an audiovisual, videoconferencing, and sound-system business. Founded in 1947 by Thomas and Maxine Berry, the corporation has grown from a small provider of background music to an international business serving approximately 300 clients, including many Fortune 500 companies and large venues such as the Meadowlands Complex and most of the Atlantic City casinos.
“It’s the advancement of technology and the quality of our employees that steer our direction,” says Berry, 39, of Cranford. Based in Mountainside, Verrex has 106 employees with offices in Boston, Tampa, and London, and hopes to further expand globally.
This growth may be fueled in part by the green revolution, which has encouraged some businesses to use telecommunications to reduce travel. “There are a lot of different dynamics for the future,” says Berry. “From the technologies that drive us forward to our international expansion. But we also have a civic and moral obligation to investigate green solutions as they relate to audiovisual.”
As for family legacy, Berry says his two daughters, Samantha, 8, and Shannon, 5, could be future Verrex leaders. “I’d like them to be involved, but like all good parents, I want them do what they want,” he says.
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Semi-Finalists
MACHINERY SERVICES
CORPORATION
Machinery Services Corporation is the result of the Taylor family’s 1982 merger between two Paterson companies—Machinery Services and Rapid Pump & Meter Service Company. The merger created a leading distributor, contractor, servicer, and installer of machinery and water-pumping systems. President Richard Taylor worked at Rapid Pump, founded in 1960 by his father-in-law, Herman Zablatzky, and later started the original Machinery Services in 1978.
With three generations and seven active family members, including Taylor’s three daughters, Machine Services Corporation is poised to continue as a family firm. “The willingness to take responsibility as a family in business together is powerful,” says Michael LaForge, who nominated the company. “It is how they have influenced the culture at the company, as well as the surrounding community.”
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MANUFACTURERS
RESERVE SUPPLY
Robert Boyd Sr. started Manufacturers Reserve Supply in 1931. Three generations later, the Irvington-based lumber wholesaler and distributor of specialty residential building products is anticipating growth and celebrating its 77th anniversary with a new 41,000-square-foot warehouse. MRS has seen its share of difficult times—World War II, changing economic and market conditions, environmental backlash against lumbering—but has always confronted the challenges with fresh ideas. “MRS is committed to giving back to the world in which it works and lives, and to the natural resources that provide the basis of its business,” says president and CEO Stephen Boyd.
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THE MOREY
ORGANIZATION
It all began in 1969 when brothers Bill and Will Morey purchased a twelve-lane fiberglass slide known as Wipe Out. The ride launched Morey’s Piers, the largest seaside amusement center in the Western Hemisphere. Located on Wildwood’s boardwalk, Morey’s Piers was voted one of the top three Best Seaside Amusement Parks in the World by Amusement Today.
The park includes four amusement piers, more than 100 one-of-a-kind rides and attractions, and two beachfront water parks, all in Wildwood’s classic retro style. “As seaside parks fade away, we hope to completely reinvent the definition of ‘boardwalk,’” says Will’s son, executive vice president Jack Morey. “We want to balance that fine line between celebrating nostalgia and developing new and exciting products that bring families together,” he says.
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Reuther
Material Company
Reuther Material Company of North Bergen was founded in 1927 by Andrew Reuther, a German immigrant, and has been family owned and operated since. The company, which is managed by the third generation of the Reuther family, manufactures mason materials, supplies, and tools. Its specialty is concrete building blocks. The Reuthers say their mission is to sell quality building material, and there is “no job too big or too small.”
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SPIRAL BINDING
COMPANY
Founded as the first mechanical bookbinding company in the country in 1932, Spiral Binding in Totowa has become a world leader in document-finishing equipment, presentation products, and custom services. Through three generations of the Roth family, the company’s values have not changed.
“Everyone competes on price, but the relationship and service you provide cannot be bought,” says president Robert Roth, who also gives to the community. The company contributes to causes significant to its 250 employees, such as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the New York City Fire Museum 9/11 Memorial (they lost their Manhattan office in the 9/11 attacks).