32 Worcester Business Journal • www.wbjournal.com
25 YEARS: IMPACTFUL COMPANIES
Knowledge + Experience
+ Trusted Advice.
It all adds up.
Large enough to serve the needs of most
businesses and individuals; small enough
to offer the personal attention you expect
and deserve.
Greenberg, Rosenblatt, Kull
& Bitsoli, PC
Certified Public Accountants
306 Main Street, Suite 400
Worcester, MA 01608
508.791.0901 • www.grkb.com
tions — was bought by private equity
firms Leonard Green & Partners and
CVC Capital Partners.
Since opening its first "club" three
decades ago, BJ's has taken pride in
being what it terms "a good corporate
citizen" through charitable giving, com-
munity-relations programs, product
donations and grants from BJ's
Charitable Foundation. In 2013, the BJ's
workforce established the Aisle Help
Fund, a nonprofit charity that provides
financial assistance to BJ's employees
who have experienced recent hardships.
The relationship between the profit-
able, $470-million BJ's and its "team
members," as it likes to call its employ-
ees, has not always been entirely cordial.
In 2004, the company agreed to pay
$320,000 in overtime pay to 233 employ-
ees as part of a settlement with the U.S.
Dept. of Labor. BJ's personnel managers
were making $14.93 an hour, on average,
and working about five overtime hours
each week. A year later, BJ's agreed to
settle charges brought by the Federal
Trade Commission alleging the compa-
ny failed to protect information on thou-
sands of its customers. Without admit-
ting guilt, BJ's agreed to implement new
security procedures and to periodic
audits of those procedures.
Legal troubles aside, in Central
Massachusetts, BJ's has been a boon for
more than just its shareholders, employ-
ees and shoppers. In 2006, the company
replaced its distribution center in
Franklin with a new 618,000-square-
foot facility in Uxbridge, which has the
capacity to support up to 86 BJ's stores in
the Northeast. The facility can accept
and distribute more than 500 truckloads
of product each day at its 239 loading-
dock doors, and has parking space for
560 tractor-trailers.
Based in Westborough since
2011, BJ's has been loading
members' carts for 30 years.
