Listening to Local Business: Stephanie Mack Visits Homeport

Oct 7

4 min read

Pearl Beckage, Stephanie Mack and Lynne Smith with Homeport owner Mark Bouchett during a visit to the Homeport store in Essex Junction, Vermont. — Pearl Beckage, Stephanie Mack, Homeport owner Mark Bouchett, and Lynne Smith during a recent visit to Homeport in Essex Junction

A storefront can look busy, polished, and successful while the business behind it is operating much closer to the edge than customers might ever imagine.

Customers see the merchandise, the employees, the displays and the lights. They do not necessarily see the payroll calculations, the thin margins, the difficult hiring decisions or the years when a business owner is simply trying to keep everyone working.

Those realities came into sharp focus when Stephanie Mack joined fellow Vermont House candidates Pearl Beckage and Lynne Smith for a recent visit to Homeport in Essex Junction.

The three sat down with Homeport owner Mark Bouchett for a wide-ranging conversation about what it takes to operate a local business in Vermont today.

The discussion covered workforce challenges, employee retention, Canadian visitors, downtown Burlington, training young workers and Homeport’s new presence in Essex.

But one observation from Bouchett captured much of the conversation.

Business owners, he said, do not always know “how close to the cliff” they are.

Behind the Storefront

Homeport has been in business long enough to know that a good year does not guarantee another one.

The company does not turn a profit every year. In stronger years, money is set aside so that when business slows, employees do not immediately pay the price.

“We do good in the good years,” Bouchett explained, describing a business philosophy that puts much of what the company earns back into salaries, wages, and keeping the operation stable through difficult periods.

That may be one of the least visible parts of local business.

Customers see the lights on, the shelves stocked, and employees behind the counter. They do not necessarily see the calculations taking place behind the scenes as owners manage inventory, credit, payroll, benefits, and years when the numbers simply do not cooperate.

More Than a Payroll

Homeport currently employs about 28 people. The business offers a 401(k), vacation pay, and other benefits, but the conversation made clear that the relationship goes well beyond a benefits package.

Two Homeport employees inside the Essex Junction store. — Irene Wrenner and Anne Miller, members of the Town of Essex, Vermont’s **Economic Development Commission (EDC)**

Bouchett described employees as family. Some staff members who cannot travel home for the holidays find themselves sitting at his Thanksgiving table instead.

When someone needs flexibility, the company tries to provide it. When employees need time away, Homeport looks for ways to make it work.

“We treat our staff like family,” Bouchett said.

For a locally owned business, that makes staffing decisions personal. Cutting hours or losing employees is not simply a line on a spreadsheet.

Learning How to Work

The conversation became especially lively when it turned to younger employees.

Homeport likes hiring high school students.

Why?

Because, as Bouchett explained, the business gets the chance to teach them.

Some young employees arrive without much experience talking directly with customers. Others have never answered a traditional business telephone. They may be entirely comfortable with a smartphone while feeling uncertain about how to pick up a ringing landline, greet a caller, carry on a conversation, and close it professionally. Homeport teaches them.

It also teaches confidence, responsibility, customer service, and how to interact comfortably with people face to face.

“I love that aspect of the business,” Bouchett said of working with younger employees and helping them develop those skills.

It was a small moment in the conversation, but an important one. A first job can be much more than a paycheck. For young people, local businesses are often where the habits of working life are first learned.

When Customers Stop Coming

Not every challenge is visible from inside the store. Another part of the conversation focused on customers who simply are not showing up as often, particularly visitors from Canada.

Bouchett grew up in Montreal, has family connections in Canada, and understands the relationship from both sides of the border.

He said Canadian traffic has declined, although the impact varies considerably by business. Homeport still sees Québec customers and still hears French spoken in the store, but restaurants, hotels, resorts, cottage rentals, and other tourism-dependent businesses may feel the decline much more sharply.

In Vermont, that cross-border traffic matters.

A decision made hundreds of miles away can eventually show up as an empty hotel room, an unused restaurant table, or one fewer customer walking through the door.

And Then There Were the Toys

Homeport’s Essex Junction store has only been open a few months, so the company is still learning what local shoppers want from the new location. At a recent community event, Essex residents were asked to identify businesses they wished they had locally.

Pearl Beckage and Stephanie Mack inside Homeport in Essex Junction beside a Halloween display. — Pearl Beckage and Stephanie Mack share a lighter moment beside Homeport’s Halloween display in Essex Junction.

People wrote their answers on Post-it notes. One request showed up three times: Toy store.

That caught everyone’s attention because Homeport’s new Essex location already has toys, and the company is discovering just how important that department may become.

Bouchett said Homeport is learning quickly from what customers want and expect at the new location. Toys are one area the company expects to build out further. Kitchen goods and small appliances are another.

It was an unexpectedly fitting end to the conversation. A community says what it needs. A business listens. The business adapts.

The Value of Showing Up

The Homeport visit covered serious ground: fragile margins, workforce pressures, downtown conditions, Canadian tourism, training young workers, and the everyday realities of running a business.

But underneath all of those subjects was a simpler lesson. Understanding the local economy begins by talking with the people who actually operate inside it.

Not from a spreadsheet. Not from a headline.

From behind the counter, where the lights have to come on every morning, the employees have to be paid, and the doors have to stay open.

Visit Homeport

Homeport is a locally owned Vermont retailer with two locations. Its longtime flagship store has been part of Burlington’s Church Street Marketplace for about 40 years, and its second location is now open at the Essex Experience.