Mainebiz

W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 21 F E B R UA R Y 2 1 , 2 0 2 2 F O C U S W E A LT H M A N A G E M E N T / R E T I R E M E N T owned company in December. It has 11 stores in Maine and New Hampshire and 140 employees. Under the changeover, founder Brett Wickard became the interim CEO and chair of the board of directors. Wickard said he laid out three goals for the sale: To build a platform for employees to have more control and input into company operations, to create financial security for their future and to provide more earning opportunities. "As we've grown over the decades, it's always been a collaborative effort. Our team is local, loyal, and hard- working and together we've built one of northern New England's greatest brands from the ground up. I'm very proud of what we've accomplished," Wickard said. "Maintaining local ownership will continue Bull Moose's mission to con- nect, inspire, and entertain folks with our inexpensive, fun, collectible stuff." Eligible employees were granted stock ownership by Bull Moose's ESOP Trust, which owns 100% of Bull Moose after buying out Wickard. Employee owners are now represented by an ESOP committee, to whom the board of directors will report. e move towards an ESOP began in January 2020, when Wickard said he began weighing the future for Bull Moose. e pandemic hit and slowed down the transition plans but the ESOP plan got back on track last fall. He weighed other options for the company, such as a sale, but that didn't seem to fit the Bull Moose vibe, he told Mainebiz at the time of the ESOP announcement. "If I sold it to another company, we couldn't control how it would be operated and it wouldn't feel like Bull Moose," Wickard said at the time. "It's all about local control and community stores and we wanted that same kind of feel to continue." Wickard started Bull Moose in 1989 while a student at Bowdoin College. From one small store selling CDs and tapes, Bull Moose grew to 11 stores sell- ing a large variety of pop culture items. e edge the company had over Blockbuster and dominant retailers of the time came down to cultivating a community. "We quickly realized that our edge is community," he says. "So really paying attention to what people are buying and who's buying it. And we adapt." Wickard has a separate company, FieldStack, that he'll continue to run. It's a Portland-based retail management software company that Wickard founded in 2014. FieldStack is experiencing rapid growth as retailers look for full-service partners to help them grow profitably. "I'm all in on FieldStack. We have a goal of growing 40% percent, year over year, for the next two years. ere are great opportunities ahead of us right now. Retailers really are reconfiguring how they operate and FieldStack is at the center of that. We want FieldStack to grow as smartly and aggressively as we can," Wickard said. F I L E P H O T O S C O N T I N U E D O N F O L L OW I N G PA G E » STATEWIDE 2021 The best time to sell is when the company is growing, the bottom line is growing and there is consistent growth and attractive prospects for the future. — Drew Oestreicher and Colleen L. McCracken Drew Oestreicher, senior vice president and senior client advisor at Spinnaker Trust in Portland, and Colleen L. McCracken, a strategic business advisor at CLMC LLC.

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