Kevin Riordan: Battery store recharged Cherry Hill man's career

Batteries may have drained Roy Abbate's savings, but they recharged his career and his life, too.

"There's no age limit to when you can learn something new," says Abbate, who was over 50 and unemployed when he sank his entire 401(k) into a Batteries Plus store in Mount Laurel.

"I had about $500,000. It was everything," he recalls. "I was scared. But my kids were grown, and I thought, 'If it doesn't pan out, the only person I would hurt is myself.' "

Two-and-a-half years later, the affable Cherry Hill resident is charged up and ready to go, just like everything else on the sales floor of his Route 73 store. The place is packed with racks and stacks of batteries of various voltages and chemical compositions; ask the proprietor about any of them, and he keeps on going.

"I love it," says Abbate (pronounced a-bah-tay). "I love dealing with the customers. People take batteries for granted. Until they need them."

Which is often: Batteries have never been more ubiquitous. They power the state-of-the-art gadgets and gizmos without which we would be unable to ceaselessly talk and text and send photos to each other.

Batteries start our vehicles and run our toys and tools; at Batteries Plus there's even a jump-start pack for a helicopter. And if a battery isn't in stock, Abbate's collegial three-member crew will try to find - or make - it.

"People don't have to be convinced to buy a battery," Abbate, 56, observes. "What they need is education."

(Indeed, when I inquire whether so many batteries in one place is, well, dangerous, Abbate doesn't blink. "With proper handling," he kindly assures me, "there's no risk.")

Abbate was born in Palermo, Italy, immigrated to New York City with his parents as a boy, and spent 30 years as a manager with a company that manufactured equipment to analyze chemicals.

He was laid off in 2006 as the company merged operations. After a dozen fruitless interviews for comparable jobs at comparable pay, he decided to open his own business. "But I didn't know what," he recalls.

Abbate took advantage of the small business-development programs offered through New Jersey's unemployment service, and at Camden County College. "They were extremely helpful with my business plan," he says.

He also hired a consultant to research and recommend franchise opportunities; Batteries Plus was a top choice.

From a single store in Wisconsin in 1988, the chain has grown to 440 nationwide. Abbate's is the only Philadelphia-area location.

"I wondered how I could make a living, selling batteries," he says. "And it was a bit of a shocker, realizing how much I didn't know."

The company's training program helped immensely. So did hiring a first-rate staff.

The close-knit crew includes "tech guy" Chuck Colwell, of Oaklyn, associate Steve Chobert, of Clayton, and retail manager Shelley Carter, of Cherry Hill.

"No two days are ever the same. No two customers are alike, and no two [requests] are alike," says Carter, whose father, a design engineer for RCA, also ran a radio- and TV-repair shop at the Berlin Market.

One customer sought a six-volt battery for a 1947 vehicle. Another needed to power up a transistor radio from the 1950s.

Colwell even had to custom-build a new battery for a remote-control unit - to operate a cement-crushing machine.

And sealed battery packs customers hope can be rebuilt, rather than replaced, offer the sort of challenge he loves.

"You have to take things apart so you can get them back together," Colwell says. "I have tricks."

That's why Ken Hofbauer, who heads up the Burlington County hazmat service, is a regular customer. "We use gobs of batteries, and he rebuilds batteries for me that I would have a hard time replacing."

Although Abbate hasn't had a real vacation since the store opened in 2008, "I'd do it all over again," he says.

But has it paid off?

"It will."