Retirement can be approached in many ways. It can be a time to rest and enjoy free time, or to continue actively contributing to the community, for example. This is the case of the protagonist of this story, a university professor who turned his retirement into a family business. For 37 years, Schrader worked as assistant director of the agriculture center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Cooperative Extension. With the help of his son, he started a new business selling Christmas trees and created a family atmosphere that no one wants to miss.
He has become the story of the university professor who turned his retirement into a family business
“I had some good experiences working on a farm when I was younger, much, much younger,” Schrader told local media. The fact is, as Bob Schrader approached retirement, he wasn’t planning on taking it easy. Now, with the help of his son Jake, he owns and operates Chestnut Mountain Christmas Tree Farm, a 130-acre farm located in Hatfield, Massachusetts. And so, he has become the story of the university professor who turned his retirement into a family business.
As Bob explained in an interview with CNBC, the farm had been abandoned for almost a decade, and he was able to acquire it for $215,000, the equivalent of nearly €185,000. “It wasn’t perfect at the time, but after looking around for a while, I realized it was a very good deal,” the protagonist of this story confessed. The fact is, five years before retiring, he bought the Christmas tree farm.
Schrader began working with his father on the farm
The idea for the farm wasn’t a sudden impulse. Schrader has explained how he has always felt emotionally connected to a farm, to life in the countryside. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a degree in soil and plant science, Schrader began working with his father on the farm. “I like to think I’ve been with my father every step of the way, through thick and thin,” the businessman says.
The work isn’t easy. It takes between seven and nine years of caring for the trees—fertilizing them, applying herbicides, cutting nearby weeds, pruning the sides, and shaping the canopies—to get them ready for Christmas. Currently, Jake Schrader is the co-owner of the farm and works alongside his father alone for most of the year. “I think we both have our roles,” Jake explains. After harvesting a section of mature trees, they begin clearing the area for replanting, which can take another two or three years.
This time of year, the trees sell for between $75 and $90
As for profits, they tend to be slow in coming in, mainly due to the time it takes between harvesting and the trees’ growth. Added to this is the fact that it’s a tremendously seasonal business that kicks off around Thanksgiving. At the Chestnut Mountain Christmas tree farm, there’s hardly any profit for most of the year. “More than once, when I was selling trees, someone would say to me, ‘Wow, what a great business! You plant the tree for about three or four dollars. You come back eight years later and sell it for 75 dollars. What’s wrong with that?’ And the truth is, it’s far from that,” Schrader says. However, this lack of income is compensated when Thanksgiving arrives. Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the pre-Christmas season, when the holiday spirit starts to fill American homes.
The farm typically sells around 2,500 trees each year, and a third of those sales occur during Thanksgiving weekend. At this time of year, the trees sell for between $75 and $90. Behind the scenes, a large team works to make all of this happen. About a dozen people, including friends, family, and part-time employees, help the Schraders on the farm during peak weekends in November and December.