Still trucking: Company celebrates 100th year

Published: Sunday, January 3, 2010

By Cara Baruzzi, Register Business Editor

  In 1910, Anthony Augliera, a teenaged immigrant from Sicily, helped travelers coming in and out of Union Place station in New Haven with their baggage, starting Anthony Augliera Moving & Trucking Co. with only a wagon and the help of his horse Fanny.

  A century later, the company he founded — now called Anthony Augliera Inc. and based in West Haven — has evolved into a moving company that transports, among other things, theatrical stage sets and equipment and has a fleet of four moving trucks, 12 tractors and 50 trailers.

The company, at 34 Hamilton St. in West Haven, marks its 100th anniversary in business this year.

"We’ve always been an independent trucking company," said Rob Augliera, the business’ owner and the founder’s grandson. "All the big trucking companies that have done very well have been affiliated with (a larger corporation), but they’ve also come and gone."

His business, he said, has been able to endure due to the dedication of its staff, which currently has about 30 workers.

"We come to work every day," he said. "Everybody works hard here every day; no one has a free ride."

The company specializes in two main areas: helping consumers with their moving needs; and transporting sets, costumes and other equipment from Broadway shows and other theatrical productions. The business is involved with almost every theater show that comes to New York City.

"It’s almost like two different businesses under one roof," Augliera said of the company.

The origins date back to when Anthony Augliera, at age 19 in 1910, met Sylvester Poli, a prominent local businessman who owned several Vaudeville and movie houses. Poli sold Augliera a horse and wagon for $200, becoming Augliera’s mentor and launching his career.

"That, I think, was his big break in the theater business," Rob Augliera said of his grandfather.

The company has been handed down through several generations of the Augliera family, with Rob taking ownership in 1996. His late father, Salvatore, and uncle Tony were previous owners.

"I worked here as a kid," Rob Augliera said, remembering when he and his brothers used to haul baggage from the train station to Camp Laurelwood for customers.

Rob, who went to college with plans of becoming a teacher, instead kept returning to the family business during summers and began working there full-time as a mechanic in 1979.

Lucille DiVerniero, one of founder Anthony Augliera’s daughters, credits Rob’s leadership for sustaining and expanding the company in recent years.

"Rob has a lot of loyalty to the business," she said. "He never let my father’s name come off the streets of New Haven. I see a red and green truck on the street and I’m beside myself. To me, it means a great deal."

Rob Augliera said several in the community have helped the company along the way — namely, DeGrand Trucking in West Haven, Eagle Leasing in Orange and New Haven-based Bank of Southern Connecticut.

DiVerniero said her father likely didn’t expect his business to endure for a century, mainly because he didn’t originally foresee his sons entering the business. He wanted the children to go to college, but those plans were interrupted by military service after which the sons returned to the business.

Today, Anthony Augliera Inc.’s 8,500-square-foot space encompasses a repair shop for the vehicles, administrative offices, storage space and a dispatching office.

This time of year typically is busy for the side of the business that focuses on theatrical work, since the Broadway season heightens around the holidays, he said. The part of the company that helps individuals move between homes, meanwhile, tends to get busiest during the summer months.

Like many other businesses, the company has felt the effects of the economy.

"We’re absolutely impacted like everyone else," Rob Augliera said. Homeowners, for instance, are not buying and moving into new houses as frequently as they have in the past, impacting the part of the business that focuses on residential moves.

But the company has previously endured economic times as bad as this — and even worse, surviving the Great Depression — which Augliera attributes to his grandfather’s perseverance. When times got tough and recessions hit, Anthony Augliera took jobs parking cars for 25 cents each to make ends meet.

These days, company officials hope some strategic business moves they’ve implemented will position the business to weather the current economic storm and beyond.

One thing that differentiates the company from other transportation businesses, Rob Augliera said, is its focus on recycling and reusing theatrical sets and equipment that stage productions no longer need. Whenever possible, in an effort to give back to the community and salvage equipment, the company donates stage sets to area schools and churches.

"I don’t like to throw anything good away," Augliera said.

Cara Baruzzi can be reached at cbaruzzi@nhregister.com or 203-789-5748.