Community Synergy, National Perspective
She Builds — Conversations with Female Retailers
By Doug Donaldson
Amy Kaplanis, owner of Country Ace Hardware in Granby, Colo., and member of Ace’s board of directors, thrives on seeing the impact her store has on her community.
Throughout the years, the hardware store in Granby, Colo., has gone by several different names until the moniker Country Hardware stuck in 1979. Throughout the revolving door name changes, the store and owners have been the nucleus of the Colorado community about 90 miles northwest of Boulder.
In 2001, Tom and Kathy McConathy purchased the store and converted to Ace. In the next decade, the couple moved, and the store continued expanding to its current size of 18,500 square feet. Tom and Kathy’s daughter, Amy Kaplanis, joined the business working in human resources and became store manager. In 2015, Kaplanis purchased the company from her parents.
“I love the constant change and growth we see in retail,” Kaplanis says. “Hardware stores and general stores like us are a special place, because we’re what our communities need. It’s amazing to see the impact our store has in our community and on our employees’ lives. It’s a great symbiosis between smaller communities and hardware stores. They support us, we support them.”
Within the Granby community, the store supports several organizations including high school athletics, a local pet shelter, recycling programs, rodeo and summer theater. In addition, the store provides more than $1,000 in gift certificates every year to the Granby Public Library Summer Reading program.
Because of her local, hometown business owner perspective and her experience serving on Ace’s board of directors, Hardware Connection had a conversation with Kaplanis about her thoughts on women in the hardware industry.
