Longtime owners sell Maple Museum to childhood friend

A former engineer at Bryant Grinder in Springfield just retired from his second career, along with his wife, as owners and operators of the New England Maple Museum in Pittsford.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20130415/BUSINESS01/704159983

Mike and Mary Blanchard recently bought the New England Maple Museum in Pittsford from founders Tom and Donna Olson. In back, from, left are Donna Olson, Tom Olson, Mary Blanchard, Mike Blanchard, J.J. Blanchard, Todd Blanchard, Mary Wilson, Reba Wilkins and Laura Goodrich. Sitting on the sled is Cole Blanchard. Photo: Albert J. Marro / Staff Photo Published April 15, 2013 in the Rutland Herald Longtime owners sell Maple Museum to childhood friend By Bruce Edwards STAFF WRITER Tom Olson and Mike Blanchard go back to their days growing up in the Crescent Street neighborhood of Rutland. So when Olson decided it was time to sell the New England Maple Museum in Pittsford, he said he couldn’t have found a better person to carry on the legacy of the 35-year-old museum of the maple sugaring industry. “His older brothers were my best friends,” Olson said. “They lived on Oak (Street), I lived on Crescent, and 40-some-odd years later, I’m selling the business to my best friend’s brother.” On April 1, Olson turned over the keys to Blanchard, who has made a career of selling cars as the owner of Pittsford Auto Sales. Blanchard said he was interested in buying the museum (www.maplemuseum.com) five or six years ago but Olson and his wife, Donna, weren’t quite ready to sell. Fast forward to last fall, when Olson got in touch with Blanchard and said he was ready to sell the museum. Olson said he’s at a stage of his life when it is simply time to move on and pursue other interests. Blanchard said the museum represents an investment and a diversification from his sole business of selling cars. He said the work the Olsons have done at the museum over the years is impressive. “He deserves a lot of credit,” Blanchard said. “He’s built up a museum that’s second to none.” For Olson, the museum was a culmination of his interest in the maple sugaring industry. That interest started at a young age, growing up with Phil Moore, whose family owned G.H. Grimm Co., a sugaring equipment maker on Pine Street. Moore later started the Sugar & Spice pancake house in Mendon. “I became very interested in the history of maple sugaring and that’s how the whole thing started,” Olson said. Olson was working at Grimm one day when he heard that “Shorty” Danforth, who owned the House of Pancakes in Royalton, was going to sell his exhibit of sugaring equipment. “I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to pursue my hobby and get ahold of the collection,” he said. He said many of the sugaring artifacts date back to the early 18th century. In 1977, Olson broke ground on the Route 7 museum. At the time, he was an engineer at Bryant Grinder in Springfield, so he spent nights and weekends putting the museum together. When he started teaching at Vermont Tech, Olson said that gave him more time to spend on his passion. “My goal at the time was to retire from Vermont Tech when I was 58 years old and then spend the rest of my days working at the maple museum until I was 65,” he said, “and now I’m over 70 years old.” The museum has been expanded over the years, from 3,500 to 6,500 square feet. Olson has added to the collection with donations of sugaring equipment. The museum’s website sums up the history this way: “The museum has the most complete collection of sugaring artifacts in existence, from an ancient block of wood with a sap-collecting gash made by American Indians, to modern plastic pipeline. Real evaporators simulate the syrup-making process. Antique historical photos tell the early history in black and white, while two large dioramas depict accurate turn-of-the-century scenes: maple sugaring on the family farm, and a back-country logging camp in colorful miniature. The museum also has a slide show and demonstrations of maple candy making. When the museum opened in 1977, Olson said, he hired a manager, who quit after two days on the job. His wife, Donna, stepped in and managed the business until 1999, but stayed involved until the day the business was sold to Blanchard. Olson said the museum gift shop is a popular attraction on its own, selling a variety of maple syrup and maple products. The online and mail-order business has taken off as well, said Olson. He said the gift shop’s extensive food selection has been noted by Food and Wine magazine as one of the top 10 food museums in the country. “We have a free sampling room and we have over 24 varieties of maple foods or foods that have maple syrup in them,” Olson said, “along with our different grades of maple syrup you can sample.” The museum is open 10 months a year. It’s closed January and February and reopens in mid-March in time for the sugaring season. From the 1980s through 2001, as many as 30,000 visitors, many of them bus tours, would come through the museum. Olson said since 2001 attendance has averaged between 18,000 and 20,000 visitors. The attendance doesn’t include the gift shop, which is free and open to the public. Besides adding some items to the gift shop, Blanchard said no other changes are planned. “He’s got a gift shop down there that I think is a hidden treasure that a lot of people don’t even know about,” Blanchard said. Olson has mixed emotions about leaving the museum behind. “It’s part of our life, really,” he said. “Our kids can’t remember a time before we had the museum.” But he also knows he’s leaving the museum in good hands. “I’m really happy that the Blanchards have purchased the place, because they’re kind of a pillar of the community up there in Pittsford,” Olson said. The sale of the New England Maple Museum follows the sale of the Vermont Marble Museum to the Preservation Trust of Vermont at the end of last year.