Class 2000
Paul D’Amour and Gerald D’Amour
Paul H. D’Amour was born in Canada in 1906. His family immigrated to Holyoke, Massachusetts a year later. He attended Clark University and Northeastern, but left to become a bread salesman in order to help support his family. In 1936, he left the bakery to buy a small grocery store known as The Y Cash Market, which was located in the Willimansett section of Chicopee where two roads converge to form a Y.
During his career, Paul supported numerous business, civic, and community organizations. He also served as President of the Massachusetts Food Association, Director of the Holyoke Hospital, and Trustee of the Elms College. In 1971, he received an honorary degree from Assumption College in Worcester. Paul was the President of Big Y until he was named Chairman of the Board in 1969, a position he held until his death in 1991.
Gerald E. D’Amour first worked in his family’s market as a school boy. During World War II, he served in the United States Air Force in the South Pacific, leaving the service at the end of the war as a Captain. He subsequently studied engineering at Catholic University in Washington, but came back to Western Massachusetts when his brother Paul asked him to return to the food business in 1947, and they incorporated their business. Thus began the partnership which developed into the Big Y Supermarkets we know today. In 1969 Gerald was appointed President, a position he still holds. The rest is history.
The two brothers went on to build the Big Y Supermarket chain, which now boasts 46 stores, located throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut, and which employs 7,600 people. Throughout his career, Gerry has been an active citizen in our community. He is a member of the American Legion and the Knights of Columbus. Within the food industry, he has been a member of the Massachusetts Food Association and the Food Marketing Institute. He has been a member of the Bank of Boston Regional Board and Heritage Bank, the Springfield YMCA, the MacDuffie School, Baystate Health Systems, the Springfield Library and Museums Association, the Massachusetts Easter Seals Society, and several other civic and charitable groups. He is a Trustee Emeritus of Western New England College. In 1983, Gerald and his brother endowed the D’Amour Library at Western New England College, and a continuing education scholarship in honor of their mother at the Elms College. In 1991, he received the William Pynchon Award. He has received honorary degrees from Bay Path, Western New England, and the Elms College.
Paul D’Amour and his brother Gerald D’Amour are wonderful symbols of the spirit of entrepreneurism: risk-taking, intelligent, and giving. It is indeed our honor to induct these two outstanding members of an exceptional Greater Springfield family into the first class of the Western Massachusetts Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame.