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05/18/2016 08:30 AMSteve Bogan had an explanation for offering to pay for a visitor’s coffee.
“It’s Pay It Forward Day,” he explained.
Whatever the day, Steve has been doing a lot of paying forward recently—and for far more that a cup of Joe. Steve and the company he and his wife Susan own, Blast All of Old Saybrook, played a key role in painting the highway bridge at Exit 3 off Route 9 in Essex. (Another contractor has to do work on the end panels that connect to the bridge’s concrete supports before those panels can be painted.)
Steve, who maintains residences in both Essex and Old Saybrook, planned, supervised, and donated labor, equipment, and materials for the project. Beyond his contributions, funding for the project came from the Essex Foundation, the Essex Rotary Club, and donations from local citizens. The Town of Essex provided in-kind support with police services to divert traffic during the project.
What was unusual about the project, Steve points out, was the town doing the work on a structure actually owned by the state. What was equally unusual was the way Steve arranged for the union labor to complete the project. Because Blast All is a union shop, Steve was familiar with the work rules of the International Brotherhood of Painters. Specifically, he knew apprentices had a requirement for community service. He set up a plan under which apprentices would complete their community service requirement by painting the bridge. The apprentices worked with Steve’s own staff of professionals guiding their efforts.
“It was a win, win situation,” he said. “We mixed the apprentices with the skilled workers. The first day was a bit rough, but by day four they were doing very well.”
In fact, it went so well, that Steve has hired two of them.
“We got to look at how they worked, and who would work out for us,” he says.
Steve’s first experience with paying it forward came as the result of a catastrophic motorcycle accident he had as a young man—a young man with no medical insurance who spent weeks at Middlesex Hospital.
“I didn’t even have two pennies to rub together. I was selling everything to pay. The bill was huge, tens of thousands of dollars,” he recalls.
And then something he never could have expected happened.
“The bill went away. Someone had paid it.”
That someone was Harriet Cheney Downing, who donated her property, now Cross Lots Preserve, to the Essex Land Trust when she died.
“Mrs. Downing had set up some kind of fund to help people from Essex with their hospital bills. She did it because she could, she wanted to, and it changed my life. I want to carry that forward.” Steve says. “Every day I try to give back.”
In a recent morning conversation, Steve spread his hands out on the table to make sure a listener understood what he was about to say.
“My hands, these are what I have used to earn a living; I’ve used my hands ever since I graduated from Valley Regional,” he explains.
He feels strongly that not enough young people are encouraged to learn a trade after high school.
“I’ve made more money with these,” he says, indicating his hands, “than I ever would have with higher education.”
In addition to his primary business, Steve has also developed local real estate, looking for the kind of commercial properties that can stimulate existing enterprises or create new ones. He calls it community development. Another interest is the preservation of historically important buildings. In fact, antiques in any form fascinate him.
“I love old things; finding original things and preserving them,” he says, adding that his mother was an antiques dealer.
He has restored two old tugboats, one of which was donated to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, and is also a collector and restorer of old cars, particularly of Jeeps and Datsuns, the former name of Nissan cars. He is just about to sell at auction a Jeep that once belonged to the late newsman Charles Kuralt, who had a weekend home in Texas. Steve saw the Jeep, which had been sold after Kuralt died, advertised on eBay.
“I had to have it,” he says.
Steve works out regularly, though not as much as he did during the economic downturn of 2007-’08.
“I had a lot of time for the gym then,” he says.
He is also a cyclist, currently concentrating on mountain biking on the trails in The Preserve, the 1,000-acre conservation sanctuary, most of which lies in Old Saybrook.
And once a year he is a cook, the bake master at the annual Essex Lions Club lobster bake. He wasn’t a member of the Lions when he first saw the effort that club members expended setting up for the event.
And then a familiar principle came into play.
“I went over and asked them if I could help,” he says. “They told me I could if I joined.”
He did, and after understudying then-bake masters Robert Viteri and late Joe Bombaci, he has held the job for the last six years.
“I take it very seriously; every year we make some refinements,” he says. “I am proud to say I am the bake master.”
When Steve bought Blast All some 25 years ago, the business was foundering. He says ambition and focus helped turned the company around, but says credit should go to his wife and business partner, Susan.
“If I didn’t have a good wife I’d be a train wreck,” he says. “She guides me, she keeps showing me the way.”