Page 10 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • August 14, 2013 Glen Rock Craftsman meets challenges with panache by John Koster The tough times on Glen Rock’s Rock Road, where more than 20 storefronts have closed or are said to be closing, are more a challenge than a catastrophe to Geno Paolucci, who adapts to a changing econ- omy with a roster of skills he never learned in school. “I just saw a way that I could meld a pas- sion with a service,” Paolucci said recently. His passion is wood-working, a hobby he has pursued since high school and after college. The service is restoring quality furniture. Ten years ago, before Paolucci took over the venerable Glen Rock Hardware Store on Rock Road and turned it into Glen Rock Paint and Hardware, he was a systems con- sultant for the Bank of New York. He holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Rut- gers and a master’s in engineering from the University of Maryland. He was always a woodworker, and he has a lathe and other precision tools in his home in Ramsey. “We bought more tools when we first got married,” Paolucci said. “It was always a labor of love and it just sort of expanded in my spare time.” Paolucci has built armoires and other furniture from the floor up, but what he does at Glen Rock Paint is mostly the res- toration of family keepsakes or garage sale treasures that need more than a little work to turn back into antiques. He also fixes things using ingenuity and craft skills. Recently, he was asked to look at a broken office chair and urged to repair it only if he could do so at a reason- able cost. “The pedestal was deader than dead, but I remembered that I had another chair lying around where the seat was shot but the ped- estal still worked.” The conglomerate chair was back in action at a fraction of the cost of a new one. Before he started to restore furniture, Paolucci also used his display window to sell crockery and other fixtures from res- taurants that had gone out of business. “It’s a brave new world out there,” he said. “It’s also scary.” However, his imagi- nation and hands-on skills have opened up one more opportunity to stay in the private sector on Rock Road and help other people who are also tight for cash, or perhaps just sentimental about heirlooms that have seen better days. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Geno Paolucci