Family business doesn’t mean free ride
Hummell sets and maintains a high standard

By KRISTA J. KARCH
Observer-Dispatch

If you want cookies, that’s what you’ll get. At least from Harrison J. Hummel IV.

In a cutthroat business world, sometimes it’s the free cookies with the paper shipment that makes the difference, so Harrison J. Hummel IV doesn’t mind.

He’s a fourth-generation office-supplies businessman with a vision: to one day own and operate Hummel’s Office Plus, and expand it to new markets.

“Binghamton, maybe Albany — or even just improving what we have here,” he said.

What they have is five stores in Upstate New York, mostly in the Mohawk Valley, a place Hummel loves to call home.

A place to which he almost didn’t return.

Hummel graduated from Little Falls High School, then went off to Georgia Institute of Technology to study engineering. A class called “Electricity and Magnetism” forced him to reconsider his aspirations.

“I was always a straight-A student in high school, but I got a 17 percent on the first test,” he said.

Something’s not right, he thought to himself.

Then, it hit him.

His childhood was spent hearing about his father’s business. His teenage summers were spent in the warehouses, preparing shipments. Multiple Harrison J. Hummel’s before him had taken the helm of the company.

Maybe that was his destiny.

In a flash, he changed his major and graduated with a degree in management and minors in economics, finance and organizational psychology. Then, he came back to oversee employees who have worked at Hummel’s for longer than Hummel has been alive.

But the family atmosphere doesn’t give Hummel a free ride to the top. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

“When you step into a family business, you aren’t judged by the same criteria as everyone else,” he said. “You need to be 10, 20, even 30 percent better.”

It’s about setting the standard, keeping expectations high. It’s about coming in early and staying late.

And Hummel loves it.

His job title means that “if it plugs in and it breaks, it’s my fault,” he said.

But the other part of the job is keeping the customers happy.
“I have a minor in organizational psychology, so I try to figure out what a person’s button is,” he said. “What do they want? I try to make that the point.”

Sometimes, he said, what they want is cookies.

So, on top of perfect shipments and friendly service, cookies are what they’ll get.