Fourth of July Hours 2017

Happy Fourth of July!

We will be closing early on Tuesday, July Fourth 2017, at all of our six locations:

Carlmont: 8-4:30
Half Moon Bay: 7-4:30
Palo Alto: 7:30-5
Redwood City: 7-4:30
San Mateo: 8-4:30
Willow Glen: 7-5

Hassett Goes to Las Vegas

A few people from our team went to Las Vegas last week for a retreat put on by our culture coach, Linda Small.

Not all of us are Vegas fans (for reals - it's something about the smoke in the casinos, and well, the casinos, actually, if you get right down to it) but it's always an experience, and I for one love the heat.

I realize that I am also the only one. My idea of a good time in Vegas is to get up way early, practice yoga in my totally-non-air-conditioned room (again, for reals, I turn the thing off); get down to the pool as soon as it opens at 7am; swim some laps while dodging industrious waders trying to enjoy the pool while it's only 90 degrees out; go do whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing in Las Vegas for work: touring Zappos, giving a talk on my new role as Director of Culture and Dream Advocate; meeting with our aforementioned culture coach, on, well, our culture; finishing all of that and then delightedly running up to my room to change into either A) running clothes (yes, for reals, running in the desert heat is on the top of my list of favorite pastimes) or B) my swimsuit to go lounge by the pool while it's still 107 out.

I know, my proclivities run towards the weird and verge on the downright unbearable for most people. I've never been one who keeps warm easily and I think I thinned my blood permanently on my 10-year stint in the tropics. And so, I enjoy the things the Vegas has to offer that most people spend their entire visit trying to avoid.

Perhaps the only thing I and my travelmates all equally enjoyed on this trip was the tour of Zappos. Zappos (the just-purchased-by-Amazon-and-started-by-culture-maven-Tony-Hseih-pronounced-shay-shoe-and-other-stuff-selling online company) has a great tagline: Delivering Happiness. If you haven't read Tony's book by the same name, and you're interested at all in business, culture, employees, customer service or national best sellers, I highly recommend it. The concept of delivering happiness has become its own company.

Tony believes by, "...concentrating on the happiness of those around you, you can dramatically increase your own." That idea and ideal is the foundation of how he created one of the most vibrant and emulated company cultures in business today.

Our company trip to Vegas was a part of our own mission to bring more personal and professional happiness into our teams. If our employees are truly happy to be at work, our customers can feel that and perhaps take some of that happiness back into their own lives, and bam! we've made the world a (just a little bit) better place.

-Jocelyn Lovelle

The Heart of Hassett Hardware

Being in the heart of Silicon Valley, Hassett Hardware in Palo Alto serves a diverse community ranging from tradesmen/women from local businesses, families needing to keep a house-hold running smoothly, students from Stanford working on frontiers of technology, to start-ups bringing the latest innovations to market. On any day of the week you’ll see folks from all these groups in one spot in the store - the fasteners Department.

The common thread of these communities is their coming together at Hassett Hardware at Alma and Channing looking for solutions to their day-to-day problems.

The heart of any hardware store is the Fastener Department, better known as the place where one can find everything from a tiny metric screw needed to repair a clock to a box of concrete anchors for a construction site, and everything in between.

Hassett Hardware is constantly looking at the types and mix of products it offers in all its departments to see how we can better serve our customers, what new products customers will need, and how can we better solve existing problems for our customers.

So what’s new at Hassett Hardware?

We just renovated the entire fastener department: moving out all old inventory and fixtures and replacing them with new shelving, bins, drawers and stock. It’s been almost ten years since the last overall reset for this department in Palo Alto, so it was time.

What will I find in the new fastener department?

• Expected and needed items such as screws, nut, bolts and other hardware
• Quadruple the amount of metric items we used to carry
• Expanded selection on existing categories such as spacers
• Aluminum
• Stainless steel
• Nylon

• Significantly more sizes of jam nuts
• An entirely new category dedicated to expansion springs

These new and expanded categories allow us to better support long-time customers, as well as support new applications of hardware from Stanford students and Silicon Valley start-ups.

What else is new?

We’ve also refreshed some of the educational “how-to” displays and brochures in the department. Be sure to check out the excellent display on all manner of wall anchors the next time you are in the store.

And we aren’t finished, because over the next few months we will fill in some empty spaces, and refresh the corner with specialty metals, tube, wires, and sheets. This inventory is the bedrock of many projects – and we’re working to meet your needs both with great new innovative products, and knowledgeable staff.

We are always interested in hearing about your applications and needs for fasteners and associated hardware. If you have feedback for us, please feel free to call the store: 650-327-7222, email us at info@hassetthardware.com or leave us a message on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/HassettAceHardware.

Since completely refurnishing and restocking the department we’ve had customers complete home projects: fixing a wobbly ceiling fan, attaching a mirror to a door, building a deck; to hobby projects: fixing a 30-year old telescope mount, building an Archimedes screw, renovating an Airstream trailer; to some cutting edge high-tech start-up endeavors: building a heart-stent mock-up. We’d love to have you come in with your next project and let us help you find the latest, greatest, and fastest way to complete it! 

-Lee Courtney

Larry Hassett and Rebuilding Together's History

It was 1990 and Larry Hassett was running his hardware store in Marsh Manor when Lynn Edwards, one of the first volunteers of Rebuilding Together, came in and, "Wanted to know about buying a whole bunch of supplies," as Larry puts it. He got her the best deal he could - his cost. They spent time going over the catalogs (mind you back in 1990 these were paper catalogs, nothing computerized) Larry showing her how to see what his cost was, so she could stay within her budget. After about two years, she asked him if he would participate as a house captain. He agreed and oversaw the applications and the two to three projects per year.

One of his favorite projects early on was helping convert the interior of a house for a widow confined to a wheelchair. He described her showing them how she would fall out of her chair and crawl over to the commode and then lift herself up. He felt the great joy and satisfaction of doing that kind of work in the world for someone who truly needed the help.

At that time the organization was called Christmas in April and Larry helped oversee the applications and seek out sponsorships. Most houses back then received about $1,500 in sponsorship money and by 1995 he was reaching out to leaders on peninsula who would combine their efforts to raise both volunteers and sponsorship money. He was also often able to get manufacturers to flat out donate supplies. They were up to 15 or so sites per year, all houses, when they started to branch out.

Larry had become very good at running the programs, due to his vast hardware experience and his personal house-building project years before. So good, he wrote a book and developed a leadership class to train the house captains in the less obvious things to look out for - knowledge that previously had only come with experience - because many of the volunteers were not from the construction world. They were community leaders, city managers, non profit organizers. The more diverse the volunteer group became, the more rewarding Larry found the work. They could do more, with more people, and more sponsorships and better organization on the site. Under Larry's leadership, they were streamlined enough and had enough connections in the local community that when they needed a specific type of material, or a specific skill set, they could get it. He remembers needing a new floor on a project, and going directly to the owner of Circus Floors.

The program continued to expand and they began doing bigger commercial projects like the senior center in East Palo Alto, and the Peninsula Children's Center (now called Achieve Kids) and that's when Stanford got involved. With the Stanford team on board they could do really big things. Larry says that that was just, "The best thing the ever happened," for their ability to really make an impact. He says they were able to do things that just, "blew me away" in terms of scale and execution.

He tells the story of a day Anna Eshoo was assigned to his project, the same project Stanford was working on, and how much it all meant to everyone who was there that Stanford was participating. They brought 60 people, "All by themselves," and were able to install a commercial grade breaker in one day for the school.

In 2008, Larry and his sons bought Ocean Shore Hardware, the Hassett Hardware that is in Half Moon Bay. He found himself on six different boards, opening a new store and bringing his sons into the business and decided he had too many things on his plate. He stepped down from his role at Rebuilding Together, but Hassett Hardware still donates a large amount of supplies, at cost, to their efforts every year.

Hassett is currently working on a joint "Hardware Happy Hour" project to combine the needs of training all the volunteers with the resources available at our stores - both in material goods and in knowledgeable staff.

You keep your eyes peeled for more dates, times and location of those classes. I'm going to see if I can find Larry's leadership book.

- Jocelyn Lovelle

Core Values as Cornerstones

I love how our stores all embody the same Core Values, leading to a general culture of empowerment, fun, creativity and friendship; yet each store has its own style, its own take on that culture and how it embodies the Core Values. Each store team uses that empowerment to do their own thing, to better the experience for themselves and for our customers, in their own way.

If you work in a place with intentional culture, then this may still seem remarkable, but also understandable and even commonplace. However, if you have had experience with unintentional, unempowering or even negative company culture this might just blow your mind: The Willow Glen team decided to run this contest all on their own. It's not something the corporate team or the owner said to do. It's not something any of the other stores are doing. It's not something ACE suggested doing.

It's just a great idea that Willow Glen came up with on their own and implemented.  They made a raffle jar out of an old paint can (Innovation!), showcased some of our chalk paint, wrote our core values on the can and put it out there.

The thing that makes my heart sing about this is that at Hassett Hardware we know we have an entire company full of innovators and makers, and we act like it. I don't know the whole story behind how this particular great idea came into being, but my educated guess is that someone said to the store manager, "Hey, I think this would work," and the store manager probably said, "Great, let's try it." It's completely possible (and not unusual) that the person who thought of it may have just gone ahead and done it. 

We believe in each other and everybody knows it. What's the best thing that could happen? They try it. What's the worst thing that could happen? They try it. The best and worst are one in the same, because someone took an idea they had and implemented it. They experimented. They trusted themselves and the process and the fact that their idea was totally in line with the core values. Whether it works or not, is secondary. When the core values are used as the cornerstones for how we all act, we are each our own boss, navigating by a compass that always points in the right direction.

-Jocelyn Lovelle

Home From the Hardware Store

 

We stumbled upon a gem of a book that is right up our alley: “Home from the Hardware Store” by Stephen Antonson and Kathleen Hackett.

The cover features bolts of different sizes, screwed and stacked together to make rustic, but also beautiful candlestick holders. Who would have thought? I certainly wouldn’t have, and I spend more time in hardware stores than most. I also possess a good eye for design, but that isn’t enough to have come up with these original and inspired ideas. 

 

The creativity inside covers ground ranging from practical to whimsical to inspiring. What I like most is the combination of items we regularly see in the context of hardware - useful things, meant for a certain purpose - seen from a different point of view; stretched and modified into something of beauty and sometimes usefulness, but not in the way we expect. I love how this stretches my own thinking of what is expected and what is possible and how the one often keeps us from discovering the other.

 Note: All images taken from "Home from the Hardware Store" © Lesley Unruh

Succulent Classes are Back!

Last fall, we held a succulent wreath class - the first ever class at our new Redwood City location!

We had such a good time, we're hosting two more succulent classes on Saturday, February 13. Tiffany Polli, from Succulent Gardens will be back as our teacher and we've got several design options from which to choose!

Any of these classes will make a fabulous Valentine's Day gift!

10:30 AM:
Small Wooden Heart Box: $65








NOON:
Small Wooden Heart Box: $65
Small 6"x6" Succulent Box Wall Art: $65
Medium 6"x12" Succulent Box Wall Art: $90
Large 12"x12" Succulent Box Wall Art: $125
Medium 10" Succulent Wreath: $90

To sign up, please visit our store at 348 Woodside Plaza.

For more information, please contact info@hassetthardware.com.

Note: All images © Succulent Gardens