[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15469-15471]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            VERMONT'S CITIZEN OF THE YEAR, ANTONIO POMERLEAU

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce will 
recognize the philanthropic contributions of a longtime Vermonter: 
Antonio Pomerleau. Businessman, community developer, humanitarian all 
these terms apply to one of Vermont's most celebrated citizens. As I 
said in a statement to the Senate earlier this month, Marcelle and I 
are also fortunate to call him family.
  But Tony's family extends beyond the Pomerleaus. It has come to 
encompass the State of Vermont, and his generosity has touched the 
lives of thousands of Vermonters.
  This weekend, The Burlington Free Press published a story about 
Tony's legacy. His is a quintessential success story. From stockboy to 
economic magnet, Tony has become one of Vermont's most prominent 
businessmen. Along the way, he has donated millions of his own money to 
help Vermonters recover in the wake of such natural disasters as 
Tropical Storm Irene, to help renovate and restore mobile home parks 
for residents, and, notably, to celebrate the contributions and 
sacrifices of the many members of the Vermont National Guard and their 
families.
  Few Vermonters have had such a footprint on Vermont's economic and 
social landscape. Antonio Pomerleau's contributions make him a 
Vermonter of the Year in 2012, but his legacy will benefit generations 
of Vermonters to come.
  I ask unanimous consent that The Burlington Free Press article, 
``Tony Pomerleau: The Art of the Dealmaker,'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [The Burlington Free Press, Nov. 25, 2012]

                Tony Pomerleau: The Art of the Dealmaker

                           (By Candace Page)

       Newport.--Tony Pomerleau leans on his cane and steps into 
     Mill River Furniture on Main Street, just in time for its 
     grand opening ceremony. A dozen people converge on him, 
     filings drawn to a magnet.
       The mayor greets him. City councilors introduce themselves. 
     Two local reporters quiz him about the fate of the city's 
     only grocery store if plans go forward to redevelop his strip 
     mall into a hotel and convention center. The head of the 
     downtown association calls him over for a ribbon-cutting 
     photo. ``We need you Tony, right in the middle,'' she says.
       The 95-year-old, white-maned shopping center king of 
     Vermont is in his element, back in his native town with a 
     captive audience. He holds court for nearly an hour while the 
     furniture store owner whose event this is left in the 
     background.
       ``I was 12 when I started work here,'' Pomerleau begins by 
     recalling his days as a stockboy and window dresser when this 
     building was a J.J. Newberry's five-and-dime. ``I had a knack 
     for windows. This is where I started my success. I learned 
     the customer has to see the merchandise if you want to 
     sell.''
       Today, he owns the building. ``I put $400,000 into it to 
     fix it up,'' he says, his words carrying the French-Canadian 
     inflection he has never lost.
       He jokes that store owner Skip Gray was ``kinda chicken'' 
     about moving to Main Street from a much smaller store in the 
     Pomerleau shopping center. His eyes sparkle. He laughs along 
     with the audience at his own jokes.
       In a voice graveled by age, he detours into stories that 
     have become his stock in trade. The anecdotes reel off as if 
     from a tape recorder, told and retold in almost exactly the 
     same words.
       ``It's not what you pay for something, it's what you can 
     get for it,'' he tells the cluster of people, citing a real 
     estate deal 40 years in the past. ``I made $237,000 in 90 
     days'' he says of a tract of farmland bought, subdivided and 
     sold for three times what he paid.
       He laments the just-announced closing of the Eveready 
     battery plant in St. Albans. The company's problem, he says 
     with finality, is that they didn't change with the times by 
     developing new products.
       ``You gotta do something different from the other fellow,'' 
     he says. ``There's a time limit on everything--except me.'' 
     The line draws a chuckle from his clutch of listeners, as it 
     always does.
       Grace, the youngest of Pomerleau's 10 children, glances up 
     from browsing among bedroom sets.
       ``He does love an audience,'' she says.
       `See the smoke coming out?'
       On a late November night, the outside of Pomerleau's big 
     house on DeForest Heights in Burlington is a neon carnival of 
     Christmas.
       Light-bulb-lit reindeer charge across the west lawn pulling 
     a sleigh of presents. Shoulder-high candy canes stick from 
     the north lawn. Christmas lights cling to the eaves and 
     swathe the trees in all directions.
       Pomerleau opens the door for guests and pads down a hallway 
     in his slippers to point through the windows of his home 
     office.
       ``That's a new one this year,'' he says with childlike 
     pleasure, pointing to a lighted train on the north lawn.
       ``See, the wheels go around,'' he says, as lights on the 
     train blink to mimic movement. ``See the smoke coming out 
     there. Isn't that cute?'' More lights blink.
       As a very young child, Pomerleau spent four or five years--
     the time varies in the telling--in a kind of iron corset 
     after a bad fall when he was two. His father's Barton farm 
     burned. The family moved to Newport. The Depression struck. 
     His father's grocery burned.
       In his telling, young Tony went to work barely out of 
     elementary school, making deals, subcontracting the mowing of 
     lawns and washing of cars to other kids or out-of-work men 
     and taking a hefty cut of the pay.
       His stories of childhood Christmases are happy ones, of 
     horses and sleighs lined up outside the church for midnight 
     Mass, the bells as the sleighs jingled home, the sound of 
     carols.
       But there is another memory as well. He walks into the 
     living rooms and leans against the piano, its top invisible 
     under the rows of photos of his children.
       ``I was 12 or 13. One day I heard my father say to my 
     mother, `This is the first Christmas I can't afford any 
     presents.' I went down to the bank and took out $25--that was 
     money in those days--to give him.''

[[Page 15470]]

       ``I came from nothing,'' he often says, setting the 
     backdrop for stories of his successes.
       The big living room where an army of kids once played seems 
     empty on a pre-Thanksgiving evening. Country station WOKO 
     plays loudly on the radio.
       In the kitchen, an aide is helping Pomerleau's 93-year-old 
     wife, Rita, with her dinner. Alzheimer's disease has slowly 
     claimed her.
       ``It's the worst damn disease,'' he says. She speaks very 
     little, but still holds his hand and kisses him, he says.
       ``Come back tomorrow night,'' he says as he ushers out his 
     visitors. ``We're putting up more lights. It's going to look 
     even better.''
       `This business doesn't happen by itself'
       Antonio B. Pomerleau made his first million before he was 
     45 and has made millions more since. His supermarket-anchored 
     strip malls dot nearly two dozen towns in Vermont and upstate 
     New York. He and his son Ernie have a staff of 25 to help run 
     their real estate businesses.
       But here is the patriarch, spending a sunny November 
     afternoon in the artificial light of a windowless Newport 
     bowling alley two hours drive from his Burlington home, 
     talking intently and at length to a tenant whose lease 
     payment cannot amount to more than loose change in the 
     Pomerleau business.
       There are gumball machines along the wall, a Nascar-themed 
     light over the pool table and an echoing feel to the place. A 
     lone father and son hurl heavy balls down one of the 10 
     lanes.
       ``How's it going?'' Pomerleau asks as he lowers himself 
     carefully into a plastic chair beside a row of bowling balls.
       ``About like last year,'' Yvan Parenteau, the alley's 
     owner, says.
       ``That wasn't too good,'' Pomerleau says.
       In fact, the business is struggling. Parenteau has trouble 
     making the rent. He is worried about his fate if the mall is 
     converted to a convention center. Pomerleau makes no 
     promises, only says no deal has been signed yet. ``I never 
     skin a bear until I've shot it,'' he's been telling everyone 
     he meets today.
       After an hour, Pomerleau pushes himself up and says 
     goodbye. He climbs into his Mercedes for the trip back to 
     Burlington.
       ``Now you see my life. This business doesn't happen by 
     itself,'' he says of his real estate empire.
       He lists communities where bowling alleys, some of which he 
     built, have closed. Changing times, he says. He has adjusted 
     Parenteau's rent, allowing him to pay more in the winter, 
     less in summer. He has suggested prize-giving gimmicks to 
     draw in customers, and arranged for the bowling alley to have 
     a more prominent sign on the road. Later, Parenteau will say 
     of Pomerleau, ``You couldn't have a better landlord.''
       Still, Pomerleau says, ``If he can't pay the rent, he won't 
     be here next year.''
       `I'm the boss'
       A stairlift descends almost noiselessly from the third 
     floor at Follett House, the elegant 19th-century Burlington 
     mansion the Pomerleaus saved and restored as their offices. 
     Tony Pomerleau climbs off the lift, which he has used since a 
     knee injury.
       ``Hello, hello, hello,'' he greets a visitor and leads the 
     way into his office. He is surrounded by signs of success, 
     from the million-dollar view of Lake Champlain outside the 
     window, to the picture of himself with President Reagan.
       He rises each day, puts on a suit and tie and goes to the 
     office. He takes business calls over breakfast and into the 
     dinner hour.
       The Pomerleau family owns shopping centers in 18 Vermont 
     communities and four in New York. Most are strip malls 
     anchored by a supermarket. They are small by comparison with 
     a University Mall or the Williston big-box stores. 
     Pomerleau's single largest holding is the Shelburne Road 
     Plaza in Burlington, valued at $14.6 million.
       ``What the hell would I want a mall for?'' he says. ``I 
     make a lot of money the way I do things.''
       He spotted the attraction of shopping malls early, 
     understood the importance of location, pinched pennies, 
     negotiated hard with his lenders, gave up higher rents for a 
     percentage of a store's gross.
       He has transferred ownership of many of his holdings to his 
     children, about $50 million worth, he says. Ernie Pomerleau, 
     65, runs the day-to-day operations of the family businesses 
     and does many of his own deals.
       So what is the elder Pomerleau's role?
       ``I'm the boss,'' Tony Pomerleau insists. ``I'm doing deals 
     every day . . . moving that furniture store to Main Street in 
     Newport. I got the Merchants Bank moving into my building in 
     South Burlington . . . lots of deals.''  
       His speech occasionally stutters. ``And and and so so so . 
     . .'' he growls. It's not clear whether he's lost his train 
     of thought, or is simply determined to hold the floor until 
     he's ready for the next sentence.
       He still calculates dollars and cents in his head and 
     appears never to have forgotten a number.
       ``Now Price Chopper,'' he begins, and outlines precisely 
     what the CEO of the grocery chain expected to gross at a new 
     store in Champlain, N. Y., and what Pomerleau told him he 
     would gross--and just how wrong Price Chopper was and just 
     how right Tony Pomerleau was: many million dollars right--
     ``but don't put that in the paper,'' he says of the exact 
     figure he names. ``Price Chopper wouldn't like it.''
       ``I make more money today than I ever made in my life, and 
     I don't need it. I give it away,'' he says. ``I'm not old, 
     I'm here every day making all kinds of deals. Everybody has a 
     time limit--except me.''
       No regrets, no failures, no mistakes
       It is a long drive from Burlington to Newport and back. 
     Grace drives, but her father is in control.
       ``Turn here,'' he says. As the miles pass by: ``Don't go 
     that way . . . go this way . . . don't miss the turn . . . 
     keep going, I'll show you where to stop.''
       It's a long enough trip for dozens of familiar anecdotes 
     starring Tony Pomerleau: The ``$237,000 profit in 90 days'' 
     story. The ``I probably opened the first self-service 
     supermarket in the country'' story. The ``how I beat two 
     sharp guys from Boston in a real estate deal and made a 
     couple million'' story.
       The car passes White's Tree Farm on Vermont 15 in Essex. 
     Hundreds of tiny Christmas trees grow in long rows.
       ``There's a guy looking 20 years ahead,'' he says and notes 
     that he recently bought 18 acres across from the family's 
     expanding shopping center in Milton. Sometime in the future 
     ``it'll be worth two, three times what I paid.''
       ``There's a time limit on everything--except me,'' he says.
       A reporter, probing, asks about him about failures, deals 
     that didn't work out.
       ``I don't remember any,'' he says. Earlier, it was 
     suggested that his proposal for high rises on the Burlington 
     waterfront--rejected by the city in the early 1980s--might be 
     considered a failure. He brushed the thought aside.
       Big regrets in his 95 years?
       ``No regrets,'' he says.
       His biggest mistake?
       There is a long pause.
       ``The toughest was the wholesale business, but I made a 
     success of it,'' he says.
       `I'm not quite as young as you'
       It's 8:30 in the morning when Pomerleau walks into the 
     conference room at the Shelburne town offices. Town Manager 
     Paul Bohne and Selectman Al Gobeille stand up. They greet him 
     enthusiastically.
       Around this town, Pomerleau is the hero of the moment. The 
     future of the little Shelburnewood mobile home park in the 
     center of town has been in limbo for nearly a decade as the 
     park's owner tried to sell.
       Pomerleau stepped in earlier this year. His wife's two 
     caregivers live at Shelburnewood and asked him for advice. 
     They were worried about the future of their modest homes.
       He decided to buy the mobile home park, replace the aging 
     and inadequate water and sewer lines and give the park it to 
     its residents. He will retain another six acres of the 18-
     acre parcel for possible future development.
       It is one of many acts of charitable giving that have 
     become a bigger part of what people know about Pomerleau. 
     There are the annual children's Christmas parties in 
     Burlington and Newport, the party for 1,200 Vermont National 
     Guardsmen and their spouses. There have been million-dollars 
     gifts to St. Michael's College, the YMCA and to a fund to 
     help mobile home residents rebuild after last year's tropical 
     storm.
       He is scornful of businesspeople who, their fortunes made 
     in Vermont, move their official residence to Florida to avoid 
     higher taxes. ``It's wrong,'' he'll say. ``You made your 
     money here and Vermont needs you. I pay very big taxes and I 
     never complain.''
       Now, he sits down with Bohne and Gobeille.
       ``First of all, I never went into a deal in my life knowing 
     I was going to lose money,'' he says. ``The main reason I'm 
     doing this, these people didn't know where the hell they were 
     going to go.''
       He's in the driver's seat. He has agreed in principle to 
     give the town a right-of-way for a new road through the 
     Shelburnewood property. The town has a change in 
     configuration to suggest. Bohne and Gobeille deploy 
     arguments.
       Pomerleau immediately makes clear he is not interested. 
     Making changes would mean a longer time line for getting the 
     project done.
       ``This would cause a lot of delay and I'm not quite as 
     young as you,'' he tells them.
       ``You've got another 10 years,'' Gobeille joshes.
       ``Oh no question, no question,'' Pomerleau says and changes 
     tack. ``No question your idea is good, but I don't want to do 
     it. I don't want to delay it for those people. It would kill 
     them.''
       Bohne and Gobeille make one more pitch, then accept his 
     refusal and drop their proposal.
       Pomerleau repeats his objections anyway, one last time.
       ``For me, I think I'd rather stay with my plan. I might 
     live another 10 years. Five, no question, but 10. . . .''
       `Everybody has a time limit'
       Pomerleau pushes open the gate in the wrought-iron fence 
     that surrounds the family plot at Resurrection Park Cemetery 
     in South Burlington. ``Plot'' seems an inadequate word for 
     this cemetery within a cemetery.

[[Page 15471]]

       A colonnade of pointed cedars leads to a backless facade 
     modeled on a Greek temple, its columns also recalling those 
     at Follett House.
       ``I like columns,'' he says. He guides two visitors past 
     the statue of the Virgin Mary, past a bird bath, granite 
     planters, stone benches, all carefully swathed in plastic for 
     the winter. The flowers are beautiful in summer, he says.
       ``This was all my idea. I didn't ask anybody. Didn't want 
     them to tell me what to do,'' he says. He jokes, ``My kids 
     would probably put me in the woods.''
       ``This is my father here, and my mother,'' he says, 
     stopping by a row of five stones where he has moved the 
     bodies of his parents, an uncle and an aunt. In an opposite 
     line are the stones for the two daughters, Anne Marie and 
     Ellen, he lost to cancer.
       ``Go over there,'' he says, ``Look at that one.'' In a 
     little nook off the main lawn, sits a stone for Jay Lefebvre, 
     the family's housekeeper of 40 years.
       ``I told her before she died, you are part of the family, 
     you are going to be here with us,'' he says.
       He walks slowly toward the line of columns that serves as a 
     dramatic backdrop. He climbs up three steps. Here, at the 
     head of the family, a bit above them all, a pair of massive, 
     polished slabs are set in the ground. Pomerleau's name is 
     carved on one, his wife's on the other.
       The man who constantly jokes that St. Peter has forgotten 
     him has nevertheless prepared.
       But Tony, one of his visitors asks, what about ``everybody 
     has a time limit--except me''?
       ``This is just in case,'' he says.

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