Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 7, 1994 TAG: 9404070169
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KAREN L. DAVIS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I always wanted to own my own business," Chappelle said. "I attended quite a few seminars."
He also investigated an opportunity to venture into the food service field with a partner but decided to give it a go on his own instead.
Century Sales, a food service, equipment and supplies firm in Blue Ridge, is the result.
"We sell everything that you see when you walk through a restaurant, from the flatware to the walk-in refrigerator," Chappelle said.
The firm also is a distributor for about 1,100 manufacturers nationwide that make everything from cocktail umbrellas to bar and kitchen equipment.
"Our business base is so varied that if one segment of the market falls, we can still survive," Chappelle said. Besides restaurants, other customers include churches, schools, universities and other institutions that feed large numbers of people.
"We have a blanket purchase order with the Department of Defense," Chappelle said. "We also do business with about 20 correctional facilities in Virginia."
Century Sales employs two full-timers,a part-timer and two commissioned salesmen - one based in Richmond, the other in Bristol.
"We sell all over the country and can have equipment drop-shipped," Chappelle said. He also knows which manufacturers can help him fill unusual orders, like some equipment needed at the naval center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that had to meet specialized electrical requirements there.
"We've had sales as far away as Anchorage,Alaska; Edwards Air Force Base; the Naval Supply Center in Norfolk; the Federal Building in Richmond; and the Health, Education and Welfare building in Washington," he said.
The Century Sales office at Blue Ridge Mall stocks mostly small inventory items, such as cookware, utensils, cutlery and janitorial supplies. As a rule, Chappelle doesn't deal with any food items, except for the packaged popcorn that goes in the popcorn poppers he supplies to movie theaters.
Chappelle studied business administration at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. His first job out of college was in the aerospace field at North American Rockwell, where he worked as a master scheduler on the Apollo and Saturn programs. There, he "time-phased and dovetailed" all of the pieces into final assembly and scheduled them through the factory.
When the bottom dropped out of the aerospace industry in the late '60s, he moved to Virginia after accepting a job at General Electric in Lynchburg. Eventually, he went to work for ITT in Roanoke,where he was manager of production and inventory control for about 12 years.
His prior scheduling,inventory control and budgeting experience have served him well in those same areas of his own business,he said.
Even though he's in a different field now, "it's still a matter of putting the right business plan together, interacting with finance and manufacturing, doing a budget and moving the inventory - first in, first out," he said.
He also keeps up with market trends by scanning computer bulletin boards and by subscribing to publications such as "Minorities in Business Insider" and another newsletter that lists all procurements coming up at state institutions.
"The big boys subscribe to the same publications," Chappelle said. His largest competitors are not in Virginia, "but they come in on state bids, and they annihilate us. They buy in huge volumes, by the boxcar load, and can offer better price breaks. There are certain markets where a smaller business just can't be a player."
A small business does better in markets where the demand is "wide and varied" - where customers want many different items, but not always in enormous quantities, he said.
He established a good market in Atlantic City, N.J., after spending three days there visiting prospective clients. The trip turned out to be a profitable one, because he now serves six of 11 casinos. That group "represents about one-third of our business," he said.
Market research is essential to staying alive in the field, Chappelle said. "If you don't do it, you'll just spin your wheels."
Chappelle lives in Roanoke with his wife, Marian, who teaches special education at Northside Junior High School. His daughter,Debbie, pursued military training. His son, Jeffrey, a cinematographer in Los Angeles, helped out in the business for a while, doing some marketing in the Richmond area.
"He was good at it, and we got some business out of it," Chappelle said.
He feels good about positive trends in the national economy. "1992 was a down year for us because of the economy,but we survived it. This year, I'm anticipating that we'll do well."
Century Sales Inc. is at 19 Blue Ridge Mall, Blue Ridge, Va. The telephone number is 977-6814.
by CNB