Community Corner
Pharmacist Has Owned Shop in Montville For 31 Years
"When you work in a community, you are a part of a community," said Barry Braverman.
- Name: Barry Braverman, 63, is the owner of on Changebridge Road in Montville. “We’re in our 31st year. We opened the store December 1, 1979,” Braverman said. “At that time we named it ‘Montville Pharmacy.’ We’ve answered the phone ‘Montville Pharmacy’ for 31 years, and for 31 years the entire town has called it ‘Barry’s.’” This past year Braverman finally decided to officially embrace the town’s nickname for the store. “We are now ‘Barry’s’ and we now use the slogan, ‘Barry’s has it,’” he added. “In my mind it’s always been ‘Montville Pharmacy.’ In everyone else’s mind, it’s ‘Barry’s.’”
- Children: Braverman has two daughters who are 27 and 29 years old. Samantha writes questions and compiles data for the Harris Poll. Jaime is in her fourth year of medical school.
- Why Montville Township: “Opportunity,” Braverman said is what brought him to Montville Township. In 1979, two friends pulled some data for him. “Today demographic information can be found from any home computer, but in those days this information wasn’t available,” noted Braverman. Using the data his friends supplied for free from a New York advertising firm, and a company that supplied data to insurance companies and banks, Braverman felt that Montville Township offered an opportunity for growth. “This is my first business venture,” said Braverman. “I felt that this would be someplace that I wanted to be…When you work in a community you are a part of a community.”
- Part of Town: While Braverman knew he wanted his business to be in Montville Township, he admits that six weeks before opening the store, he still wasn’t certain if the building was “located in Pine Brook or Montville. Because of the way the town is divided here.” What he did know was that “there was no pharmacy in town, and the majority of people were located between Route 46 and Horseneck Road, and between the two rivers. It formed a sort of box,” he said. “My hope was those people would come here, and they did.”
- Time: “We used to work 73 hours a week,” said Braverman. “Because we were only open 73 hours a week.” Today Braverman is still in the store six to seven days a week. “If you ask people they will say, ‘Oh he’s never there.’ But really, if you ever want to see me just ask for me, I am usually in the back office.” Braverman says there is always something that has to be done when one owns a store. He joked, “We used to close at 1 o’clock on Sundays, and I used to call that my day off. Even though I would leave here and go home and do paperwork.”
- Career: “I could have been a lot of different things,” said Braverman who finds many subjects and areas of study interesting. “This just turned out to be one of them.” At Rutgers in Newark, Braverman chose to follow in his father’s footsteps by completing the five year pharmacy program. “It was a combination of a bachelor of science and a bachelor of arts program at the same time,” Braverman explained. “After that, there was a full year internship, which made six years. Then I passed my boards and here I am.” Braverman credits immaturity with his decision to attend pharmacy school. However, Braverman finds that his store allows him to explore many other topics of interest. “Pharmacy is science,” he noted. “But I also have a very creative side to me, and this store gives me the opportunity to go out there and move the fixtures around the store and change it. To go out and buy product. I love psychology. To try to figure out what the public wants. What the future will be. When past things are done and get out of that product. So this gives me a beautiful opportunity to use a lot of my expertise.” Currently he is developing a new pharmaceutical inventory system within the store that hopefully other pharmacists will also be able to use.
- Current Activities: Braverman has been very active in the Montville Township Chamber of Commerce. He notes that Montville Township is a very unique town for businesses because there is not a center of town, and not every business is retail, some are service oriented. “We work closely with the town, and they embrace us. It’s a very friendly town,” he said. After having served two years as president, he continues to be a director. As a result he sits on many subcommittees. One of his favorite is serving as the Chamber’s liaison to Montville Township’s Long Term Financial Planning Committee. “It is very interesting to go into an arena that I am not exactly one hundred percent comfortable with,” Braverman noted. He enjoys learning from the others who sit on the committee, most of whom are “accountants and CPAs. They are extremely, extremely bright,” said Braverman. “It’s just fun to listen to them think differently than I do. Because I am just a Mom-and-Pop store with Mom-and-Pop bookkeeping thoughts.” Braverman finds his role on the committee rewarding and the process fascinating.
- The Map: “I am in charge of the world famous map,” said Braverman. “The unofficial official map of Montville.” As a member of the Montville Chamber of Commerce, Braverman began the map project almost twenty years ago. It is published every two years. He is pleased that not only every resident receives a copy, but that also “The post office uses it. The fire departments use it. The police department uses it. Everybody uses it. So that’s very rewarding. When you create something, your work actually is hung up all over town.” As the artist of the map, Braverman is willing to autograph anyone’s copy. “Just bring your copy to the store and I’ll sign it,” he said.
- Most Rewarding: From scholarships to executive committee elections, Braverman serves on more Chamber committees than he can name. However, none is more rewarding for him than the annual Chamber of Commerce Awards Committee. That committee names the Citizen of the Year, the Business of the Year, and several other honors each year. “I always find it very exciting,” Braverman said. “The Chamber tries to find someone you didn’t know. That you go, ‘Who’s that?’ or ‘They did what?’And that is wonderful when that happens. You can always take someone who is in public life, because they do a lot. But, it’s much more fun finding that person that does a lot of things in the background and never gets any recognition, but deserves all the recognition they can get.”
- Other Activities: If Braverman could choose any other profession, he would like to work in a think tank. With that in mind, he notes, “I’ve been very fortunate to work on projects, literally around the country, that are think tank oriented.” For over 5 years he helped develop a pharmacy inventory system with the drug wholesaler, Cardinal Health, a fortune 17 company. The inventory system addressed pharmacy needs. “So we have the right medicine at the right time,” Braverman said. “Enhancing that was extremely rewarding to do.” He also worked with Innovation, out of upstate New York, on the development of dispensing robots. “That was pretty cool to see machinery put to work.” Additionally, he spent two years consulting with a company in North Carolina that uses three forms of light to identify medication. “From a scientific standpoint that was unbelievably fascinating,” added Braverman. “I like those projects because it gets me out of the store. And gets me to meet new people and be able to use my other side of my brain to do lots of other things. And they are extremely rewarding...It’s all for free, but if it’s not fun, I don’t do it.”
- Favorite Thing About Montville: “The people,” said Braverman. “The people are just great. Basically, when I get out from the office it’s just fun.” Braverman said that the people are very accepting of his “Quirky personality and odd comic way of doing things… it’s just my nature to have fun. It’s been actually quite nice. For 31 years, to get up and come to work has not been a problem and that’s because of the people…That’s what makes your life happy or miserable, and it’s been a good life.”
- Hobbies: “I am a very bad golfer,” noted Braverman. “In fact, I am a very, very, very, very, bad golfer.” But golf is the only sport Braverman still plays. “I used to play quite a few sports but now I’m an old person observer.” He also loves animals.
- Philosophy: “To have fun. No matter how bad it gets… I learned a while ago there are only two things you can control. You can control yourself, and you can control the environment that you work in and live in. And if anybody comes into my environment and they are not making me happy, I cannot change them. I ask them if they can change themselves. And if they can’t that’s okay, but I ask them to leave my environment. So, when you start to think that there are only two things in this entire crazy world you can control, your life becomes much simpler. Once it becomes simpler, you relax and can have more fun…Once I learned that life became much nicer. ”
- Most Memorable Moment: Braverman looks forward to his annual anniversary sale each November. Since the first anniversary of Barry’s, Braverman has held a sale where items are marked down a percentage equivalent to the number of years he has been in business. This year it will be 31 percent. What he loves about it is that everyone, from his customers to his employees, has fun. “The high school kids who work here are always surprised,” he said. “’No one yelled at me.’ ‘No one pushed me,’ they say. It’s just fun.” It takes more than twenty employees to run the sale each year. Braverman said that people are often surprised to learn that there is really a Barry. “Yes there is a Barry,” Braverman noted. “But Barry’s is a team. A team of many people who have been here many years. Yes, I’m Barry, but I’m not Barry’s. It’s a whole team effort.”
