Northern Nevada Business Weekly: Tell about your company.
Beverly Crowe: We've been experimenting with BBQ rubs and sauce in our home for decades. After perfecting our favorite recipes, they became the mainstay of our entertaining menu, and our friends began asking for their own bottles of rubs and sauce to take home. Going into production just seemed to make sense. And when I retired after more than 20 years in the catering and grocery deli industry and we moved to Reno to expand my husband's car repair business, it seemed like a great time and a great location to launch.
NNBW: What role do you play in the company?
Crowe: What role don't I play? I'm research and development, product development, production supervisor, sales manager, distributor, shipping clerk ... you get the idea. My family helps out. My daughter helps with the production and marketing, and my son and husband help when they're not busy with their own business, www.justrearends.com. And my son-in-law is one of my best salespeople, talking the business up to everyone he meets!
NNBW: How did you get into this profession?
Crowe: Once I retired from the food-service industry, I was looking for something to keep me busy. People had been telling me for years that I should be bottling and selling the rubs and sauce we make and it seemed like a perfect business for my post-retirement life.
NNBW: What are some of the skills and abilities necessary for someone to succeed in this job?
Crowe: You have to like to cook and get joy from making good food for your friends and family. The philosophy at our home and now for our company is that good food feeds the body but when shared with family and friends, good food can feed the soul.
NNBW: If you could have had any other profession what would it have been? Why wasn't it your first choice?
Crowe: I would have been a history teacher or maybe an archeologist.
NNBW: What do you like to do when you're not working?
Crowe: When I'm not working on my business I'm either helping my husband and son with their business, playing with my granddaughter, collecting antiques, looking for good finds at thrift stores, or cooking for my family.
NNBW: Have any advice for someone who wants to enter your profession?
Crowe: Again, you need to love to cook and always be thinking of new ways to combine flavors.
NNBW: What person, living or dead, would you most like to have dinner with, and why?
Crowe: Mark Twain, Sam Clemens between 1870 and 1900 - that would have been among the most interesting times in his life to have met him.
NNBW: What's the best advice anyone ever gave you?
Crowe: Don't wait for anyone else. If you want something done, do it.
NNBW: What do you like most about your job?
Crowe: Meeting people through my sampling and other events and talking with them about food and cooking.
NNBW: What are five things you can't live without?
Crowe: My health and my family would top my list.
NNBW: If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why would you want it?
Crowe: Not sure if having a perpetually clean house is really a superpower but it's definitely my wish.
NNBW: What does the content of your refrigerator say about you?
Crowe: In our house, you eat well.
The basics:
Name: Beverly Crowe, owner, Tussler's Rubs and Sauce
How long have you been in this job? Four years
How long in the profession? All my life!
Education: Some college, lots of life experience
Best book you've read? Any book by Mark Twain ... I'm a big fan.
What's on your iPod? I have an iPhone, does that count?
The best movie ever? War movies - I like how they portray struggle and success.
Spouse, kids or pets? Husband of 40 years Tim, two grown children; a daughter Jennifer and a son Jim, and cat Bandit.
