Loren Bruffey, Sr. of Fincastle apparently was born to be an
entrepreneur. At the age of 72, when many men are retiring to play golf,
Bruffey has bought into the club in order to work on his fourth concurrent business.
He has a reputation of turning everything he touches into
gold, according to one of his employees at one of his companies. "He turns
it around and it turns into money," Connie Dowdy, purchasing agent for
Cardinal Rubber & Seal, Inc., said.
Bruffey recently described his life as a movement from ridge
to ridge. He was born in Canvas, West Virginia in a cabin that sat on a ridge
top. His father at that time was a coal miner. Now he lives in a stately home
on a hill in Botetourt County.
Bruffey's storied life as entrepreneur began on the streets
of Summersville, WV. When he was seven years old, an uncle bought him a
shoeshine kit and he shined shoes in the street.
Not long thereafter, his family moved to Roanoke from West
Virginia. His father, a World War II veteran, required treatment at the VA
Hospital for wounds he received in the war. After his father healed, they lived
in New Castle in the Scratch Ankle area for two years before settling in Salem,
where Bruffey attended Andrew Lewis High School.
During his teen years, Bruffey started his second
enterprise, a wholesale fish bait business. He paid other youngsters to dig up
worms and moss, put the night crawlers in containers, and sell them to local
stores and gas stations. "I did that for two years," he said. "I
had about 25 customers."
Then he started a lawn mower business with a friend.
"We cut about $40 a week worth of yards," he said. "You only got
$2 a yard back in those days."
At the age of 17, he joined the military, serving for 37
months. He served in Korea for 13 months and eventually ended up in Fort
Monroe, Virginia, with the United States Continental Army Command. His last job
there was decoding security messages for the government. He received an
honorable discharge at the age of 20. "I still wasn't old enough to vote
when I got out," he recalled.
After he left the military, he became a police officer in
Salem and was one of the youngest men hired to serve on the force at that time.
He married Glenda Harris of Salem in 1962, and they had two children in the
first four years of their marriage.
However, public service officials then, as now, made little
money. "Being a police officer wasn't enough financial security,"
Bruffey said. "I had $110 a week in expenses and brought home $105."
Searching for something better, he decided to turn his considerable charisma
and charm to sales.
He became a salesman and branch manager for a company out of
Pennsylvania called Louis H. Heinz. He commuted from Salem to Richmond. In 1969,
he decided he wanted to live in a more rural community. About that time, the
company asked him to relocate. When his manager offered him either $4,000 in
moving expense money or six-weeks in severance pay, he took the severance.
Cardinal Rubber
He determined then that he would make his own future, and he
would do it in many different ways. First, he set himself up as an independent
sales representative. One of his largest clients was Stultz Machine, Tool &
Equipment in Southeast Roanoke. In 1973, an opportunity to create a rubber
product franchise came his way, and Bruffey purchased the building across the
street from Stulz. Bruffey and P.G. Stultz went in together to create the
Rubber House of Roanoke. Bruffey bought Stultz out three years later and in 1976,
he changed the name to Cardinal Rubber.
"Then we started our expansion program," Bruffey
said, a project that has been ongoing. He opened a branch in Harrisonburg,
which has since closed, and another in Richmond that is now 30 years old. In
the 1990s, he opened a branch in Rock Hill, SC.
Cardinal Rubber has two satellite locations in Garland, TX
and Southern Pines, NC. The business has 48 employees and services over 9,000
customers.
"We ship overseas into India, Vietnam, and China,"
Bruffey said. The company is ITAR certified, which means it is able to supply
products to US defense contractors. Bruffey's son, Loren Bruffey, Jr., is
president of the company and runs the day-to-day operations.
The company continues to expand, and earlier this year,
Cardinal Rubber acquired Stultz Machine, bringing Bruffey full circle. He
renamed the older company Stultz Tool & Equipment, and it continues as a
sales, repair and service location for hydraulics, air compressors and
pneumatic tools.
Pat Lawhorn, Cardinal Rubber's vice president, has been with
the company for 12 years. She spoke highly of Bruffey. "He's taught me a
lot about the management side of business and business ethics," she said.
"I have a huge admiration for him in his business sense. It's just amazing
the business that he's built."
She said Cardinal Rubber has a reputation for treating its
employees like family. "He's got his moments," she said of Bruffey,
"but he's there for his employees personally as well as on the business
level." The company does not have a large employee turnover, she noted.
"He instills that family feeling here at Cardinal Rubber."
Early on, that wasn't necessarily the case. Connie Dowdy of
Salem, who has been with the company for 30 years, said that was a transition
Bruffey has made over the years. "He was so hard-core when I came
here," she said. "He put business before family, but now it's
different. He's mellowed."
Dowdy was working at Nannie's Market on Catawba Road in
Botetourt when Bruffey offered her a job. "He gave me a chance and I
appreciate that." She said she was amazed that he continued to have a
near-daily presence at the business. "He makes a point of coming in and
speaking, sitting down and asking me how things are going," she said.
"He told me once, 'I will always be your friend but there is a line I will
always draw, and he draws it.'"
She said Bruffey's selling acumen is legendary. "Once
he starts a project he sees it to the end. He followed through until it was
delivered. He is always thinking, and he's got a knack for doing it."
Loren Bruffey, Jr., now President of Cardinal Rubber, agreed. "I will say that in my 30 years
of experience, he is one of the greatest salesmen that I have ever run into. I
firmly believe he could sell a cape to Superman," he said.
During those years of building up his business, Bruffey also
started Cardinal Pool & Supply Co., Inc., which he later sold.
Farming
In 1970, Bruffey bought a farm that backed up against his
father-in-law's old home place. He fixed up an older home that had no plumbing
when he bought the house.
He raised a number of different birds from time to time,
including chickens, ducks, and quail. Beef cattle became his number one farm
product, however.
"I actually leased almost 1,400 acres around here at
one time," he said. He raised hay to support more than 100 head of cattle,
which he sold at the stockyard. "I sold the last 30 head of cattle in 1995,"
Bruffey recalled. These days he has one animal remaining, an old cow he is
allowing to live out its life in his pasture fields. His property is now a
beacon for various creatures, with some areas overgrown and others seeded for
wildlife enhancement.
He has purchased nearby properties as they came up for sale,
expanding his real estate holdings. Today he owns hundreds of acres around the
original tract.
In 1976, Bruffey built a spacious home up on the highest
ridge of his farm. Not long after his house was finished, his family suffered a
series of tragedies that still brings shudders to Bruffey when he recalls it: a
tractor ran over his young son, who survived the incident. A few days later,
while his son was still in the hospital, his father-in-law died. Bruffey said
that was one of the low points of his life.
In 1989, lightning struck his house and nearly burned it to
the ground. Bruffey rebuilt. He added on to the house at that time and in
recent years, he has renovated the garage and added an addition.
Making Music
Bruffey came from a musical family; his grandfather, father,
and brothers all played instruments and sang, and so did he. He formed a band
called Music, Inc., in 1970. He played guitar and sang at venues all over the
state, ranging from Virginia Beach to Marion and locations in between. Music,
Inc. played in Staunton, Harrisonburg, Covington, Christiansburg, Radford,
Danville, and of course, Roanoke. He has many stories about his time as a lead
singer.
"Once we were playing on two hay wagons in New Castle
opening up the New Castle Fair and the drummer fell off the wagon
backwards," Bruffey recalled. "He drummed barefoot and I looked back
and all I saw was two feet up in the air, but he was still beating on the snare
drum. He never lost time."
In 1972, Bruffey opened a retail music store called
Botetourt Showcase of Music, Inc., in the mall across from Lord Botetourt High
School. He ran the store for about four years. The band rented practice space
in one of the lower levels of the mall for several years, too.
Music, Inc., ceased in 1982. Bruffey said it was too
difficult to focus on the weekend music and keep up with a growing business.
However, he has returned to those musical roots. Now he also plays guitar and
sings in Stone Coal Gap, a local band that entertains at nursing homes and
public fundraisers. He also performs with the Botetourt County Chorus on
occasion, and participates in the choir at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. "I
like to think I'm the only Catholic in a Baptist choir," he joked.
Roanoke Auto Auction
In 1999, Bruffey went to Iowa and spent a week at the World
Wide College of Auctioneering, which is recognized worldwide as the number one
school for auctioneering. Bruffey also purchased Star City Auto Auction and
renamed it Roanoke Auto Auction, Inc., at that time.
In 2005, he and a partner bought out Springlake Stockyard
and formed a new corporation, Farmers Livestock Market, Inc., to run the
stockyard. The company now has 70 stockholders and Bruffey is on its Board of
Directors. "I oversee the operation of the stockyard, and the general
manager answers to me," Bruffey said.
Botetourt Country
Club
The Botetourt Country Club ran into financial troubles
during the economic downturn, and in 2010, a group of investors purchased the
stock and took over running the company. Bruffey late last year bought out one
of those original investors and purchased additional shares to become the
second-largest shareholder in what is now called Botetourt Golf and Swim Club.
The other owners are Mike Morris, Tim Jennings, Bobby Allen, and Alan Brenner.
Bruffey said they are working to improve the facility and the partners hold
frequent business meetings to work on new ideas and iron out concerns.
Hobbies
Bruffey was an avid golf player in his younger days and
spent hours on the course at the Botetourt Country Club. Cardinal Rubber has
for the last decade held an annual customer appreciation tournament at the
facility, usually hosting about 130 golfers. He played regularly for 25 years
and was on the Senior PGA Tour Pro Am on three different occasions.
He is also an avid sportsman and enjoys hunting and fishing.
He has been to Africa twice to hunt big game and annually makes treks to other
areas of the United States to hunt, including Alaska. He has also hunted in
Canada and in Russia.
Additionally, he has soloed as an airplane pilot. He rides
motorcycles, too, and recently turned his Honda Goldwing into a trike bike, one
of his few acknowledgements of age creeping up on him.
Bruffey's wife passed away in 2000, not long after he began
Roanoke Auto Auction. In 2007, he married Rita Williams, known to many as the
candy lady and the former owner of Good Things on the Market.
Looking back on his storied life, Bruffey said he considers
himself an entrepreneur. "I also consider myself lucky," he said.
"And I'm not a procrastinator, either."
He said he is now back on the ridge, but in a different
capacity. He recalls his childhood on that ridge in West Virginia as a happy
one. "That is when you're the happiest. You don't have all these tears.
You just have happiness at that age."
And now? He looked around the restaurant of his new business
venture, the Botetourt Golf & Swim Club, and then at his daughter, who was
interviewing him for this article. "Right now I'm very happy," he
said.
