John Petchonka and Robert Sassone have a couple of things in common. They both grew up in Queens, and they both have liked ice hockey since they were youngsters. And they both introduced their sons to the game when the boys were quite young. “We turn our kids”™ attention to the things that interest us as parents,” Petchonka said. “I was interested in ice hockey from when I was a little guy. My son, Michael, started playing when he was 5 years old.”
Sassone”™s son, Robbie, “probably got a little prompting from me,” Sassone admitted. “When he was young, I signed him up for a learn-to-skate program.”
Michael and Robbie were both goalies for local ice hockey teams in Ridgefield, and “they became very good friends,” Petchonka said. As a result, Petchonka and Sassone became friends, as did their wives.
The men”™s friendship eventually took an interesting turn ”“ into the business world as partners in Ridgefield Glass beginning two years ago. That business partnership, however, had one of those circuitous routes that don”™t seem to be leading to where it ends up.
Petchonka, 52, has a master”™s degree in chemical engineering from Manhattan College and worked in the field for 26 years, the last 10 years running a chemical engineering company in New Jersey. But “they decided to close the business down and offered me a position in the Southeast,” Petchonka said. “I decided I had had enough of the business and didn”™t want to relocate, so I gave Rob a call, looking for some advice.”
When the two talked about Petchonka”™s options, Sassone suggested they might consider teaming up to start a homeowner”™s maintenance service.
“We would service all a homeowner”™s maintenance needs like changing filters on the furnace and air conditioner,” Petchonka said. “And we”™d line up contractors for plumbing and electrical issues and problems. Getting a contractor out to your house in Fairfield County to take care of a small problem is impossible.”
The two developed a business plan and were moving toward starting the service when “quite unexpectedly, Ridgefield Glass came up for sale, and we decided to abandon our original thought,” Petchonka said. They bought the business in May 2005.
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More showrooms
Sassone”™s history is a bit more complex. He started off in the family wholesale food business in the Bronx, but “there were too many chiefs,” he said. His father decided to sell his part of the business to his brother, and Sassone and his brother started a business in Rye, N.Y., that provided specialized cleaning services to restaurants in the tri-state area. “Within three years we had about 600 accounts,” but it was a seven-day-a-week operation. “My brother and I had enough and saw an opportunity to sell it, and we did.”
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Sassone then started a home inspection business in New Canaan and built it up for five years “until I came down with Lyme disease that really limited how much work I could do.”
He sold that business in 1995, then purchased a small wood molding company in Georgetown called A and B Wood Design, building that up until 2005, when he sold it to partner with Petchonka to buy Ridgefield Glass. “I enjoy turning businesses around, building them up and then selling them and moving onto the next business,” he said.
Right now, the partners are “exploring the possibility of opening showrooms in other towns in Fairfield and Westchester (N.Y.) counties,” he said.
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Boarding school
But their passions are encouraging their sons”™ interest in ice hockey.
Michael, now 15, was recruited to play ice hockey at the Brunswick School in Greenwich, Petchonka said. “Their coach at the time was familiar with the kids in the area and approached us when Michael was in eighthth grade,” he said. “It was a tough decision, driving down to Greenwich and back twice a day was not easy, but it was a great educational opportunity.”
Michael will transfer to the Taft School in Watertown as a boarding student next year because “the hockey opportunities are better,” Petchonka said.
“Robbie”™s dream is to play college hockey,” Sassone said of his 16-year-old son, “but that”™s really difficult to do from a public high school in Connecticut.” Public school ice hockey “isn”™t at the level where you can get a college coach to scout you out.” Next year Robbie will transfer from Wilton High School to the Promfret School in Promfret in the eastern part of the state, where he hopes to continue as a goalie.
He”™s been a goalie ever since he was 9, when Sassone was coaching a local ice hockey team and the goalie quit in the middle of the game. He sent his son onto the ice as a goalie, “and he loved it,” he said. “He never came out of the net.”
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