Alex’s path to his family business.

Alex Ayotte current owner,

Born in Miami FL. Early 60’s grew up in south Florida. Moved to Tallahassee Florida in 1980 with my family just after graduating High Schooll (thank you, Mom). We moved because of the cocaine wars.

 Started going to Community College but there were too many girls there for me to concentrate, so I ended up getting a job.  After a couple of different jobs I ended up being an auto machinist under the best mechanic, I have ever met. Already being a very mechanically minded person It was a great place to expand my mechanical skills.

Two years of that was enough, so I Joined the United States Coast Guard, It was not easy, and they were picky. Boot camp then off to the Pacific Islands On the Bouy tender Basswood WLB 388. I was too young to appreciate how good it was there. Next stop electronics school on Governors Island NY NY. For ten months. I graduated First in my class, then off for more training by the US Navy in California. About a year and a half after leaving the good ship Basswood. I was on the USCGC Boutwell out of Seattle and was bound for the Bearing Sea. About three years there and I got out of the Coast Guard after 5 1/2 years.

Back to being a civilian. My parents had started a business while I was in service, The Fugawee Corporation.  And I was talked into brain tanning deer hides. It is the process that the native Americans used to make leather. This is some of the hardest work I have ever done and nasty if you let anything sit too long. After tanning about one acre of leather and one great rendezvous season, I needed a steadier type of employment.  I got a job in the casting shop that made the buttons and medallions for Fugawee.

I learned a lot, Casting, mold making, modeling, and finishing. But that kind of work in summertime Florida was not so much fun. But that’s where I met my to be wife in 1989.

 I opened a Laser printer business, trying to use what I had learned in the service. I worked it for seven years until I had two stores and three employees. I learned glass bead and marble making.  We were married in April 1997.  Everything was going along fine, then I got in a car wreck. I had to shut down the businesses.

After recovering from that, I got a job working on desktop computers for the state of Florida. I worked my way up to Server Systems administrator for the Florida Department of Education.

Then my father Art Ayotte passed away, devastating as too many well know. Eventually, I ended up leaving the state and joining Fugawee full time in 2011. And have purchased a warehouse, expanded inventory, and brought Metal casting in-house.  So we manufacture all our own pewter items from concept to shipping.

Thanks for reading about me.

Humbley

Alex Ayotte