One-Man Gas Company

The gas company of Gardner, Mass, (pop. 20,397) has a shiny new truck, a new office on the town square at the corner of Vernon and Parker Streets. It also has a new president and owner: comfortable, pipe-smoking Harold Emerson Greenwood. More than all these it has a new legend for thrifty Gardner folk: how 45-year-old "Bob" Greenwood bought the whole works--the silvered storage tank, the grimy plant down by the Boston & Maine tracks, the mains connecting with 800-odd Gardner homes.

Last week Gardner people who cook with gas were able to hear the legend firsthand. They heard it from Bob Greenwood, who had taken over a job that few public utility presidents ever thought of adding to their administrative duties.

With a flashlight stuffed in his coat pocket, he set forth to read meters. His objects: 1) to save expenses, 2) to get closer touch with the customers of Gardner Gas, Fuel & Light Co.

For over ten years the competition of fuel oil and of the Gardner Electric Light Co. has been slowly running the gas company out of business. But big New England Power Association felt bound to keep the gas company going because it also owned the light company and wanted to keep everybody's good will. To keep it going, N. E. P. A. poured $297,700 into the gas company. Its gross fell from $76,439 for 1930 to $37,215 last year, and its annual net deficit ranged between $8,464 and $17,834.

Popeyed and incredulous was Bob Greenwood when New England sought him out six months ago and offered a deal: the whole works for $1, with a king's ransom in debt ($388,427 including interest) completely wiped out, no strings attached. How New England happened to pick him, Bob Greenwood says he still does not know. But townspeople can guess: onetime furniture manufacturer, onetime chairman of the town Public Service Committee, Bob Greenwood was about as popular a businessman as there was in Gardner, and had had no steady job of late.

As incredulous as Greenwood was SEC when N. E. P. A. asked approval of the deal. He was on the witness stand for seven hours convincing the Public Utilities Division that he had nothing up his sleeve, was no stooge for N. E. P. A.

"How long Greenwood will be able to continue the operations of the company is conjectural," wrote SEC in giving its doubtful blessing to the sale.

But sanguine new President Greenwood did not see how he could lose. For in addition to the physical assets of the plant, which have a possible salvage value of around $11,000, he has also taken over $11,715 in quick assets--$6,324 in cash, the rest in receivables, materials, prepaid accounts. If gross could be increased, debt-free Gardner Gas might yet become a fair moneymaker for its president, his five employes. To do that, Bob Greenwood had an idea on which (between meters) he worked last week. He went looking for off-main customers in the country who might buy bottled gas for cooking, to be delivered by Gardner Gas's new truck.

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