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By Ashley F., Class of 2004 Two brothers, born in this area, have each become successful businessmen over the years. They helped benefit their native community and also went on to contribute to other areas. Although both of them have encountered a great deal of success, they have accomplished this in different ways. Kenneth Alvin Rex was born June 6, 1955, just five minutes before his twin brother Dennis Calvin Rex. Out of the family’s ten children, Ken and Den were the only two born in a hospital; had they not been twins, they would have most likely been born at home instead of at the Oil City Hospital. They have two half-sisters, one half-brother, two sisters, and three other brothers besides each other. Ken and Den attended Ashland Elementary School and then continued their education at Keystone High School. During their high school career they lived in Pine City, just outside of Knox. They were both involved in school sports; however they were most active in basketball. Ken wore jersey number 22, while Den wore jersey number 20. Ken was the captain of their Junior Varsity team while in school. Throughout their junior year basketball season, Ken led the entire team in scoring, and during their senior year their team won the Clarion County Championship. The two brothers graduated in the spring of 1973. Although neither of them went to college, they did have to enter the workforce. For awhile both of them drove truck for a living. Around 1986, Ken and Den, along with another partner, opened a fitness center in Clarion. They managed and worked at their business for three years until Ken moved to Rochester, New York. After the closing of their business Den began working at Parker Furniture in Cranberry, PA. He worked there for two to three years before he finally moved to New York himself. Den had moved to New York with the intentions of joining Ken in starting a new fitness business in Rochester. After Ken moved to Rochester he worked as a clinical aid for about a year. He soon informed his brother of all the possibilities that were in N.Y. and invited him to come start a fitness center with him. Although this plan wasn’t a complete success, Ken continued working toward a career in fitness. Ken has gone through the Institute for
Aerobic Ken’s fitness center is called Personal Energy Inc., and is located at the Harro East Athletic Club in Rochester. At present, he has a minimum of one hundred clients, including some very important people. Company executives and presidents of large corporations come to him and to his center to be trained. He has personally trained the chief of police of Rochester and their professional soccer team, the Rhinos. He also trained Norm Frank, who is in the Guinness Book of World Records for running the most marathons in the world. Ken, himself, even ran in the Marine Corps Marathon in November of 1991. Outside of working at Personal Energy Inc. and being a personal trainer, Ken also works as a fitness consultant for health clubs. He is even employed as a fitness director at a couple of country clubs. Through his own center he has worked with corporate team building, which is the process of taking teams from companies and splitting them into groups where they compete against each other. This often helps to build the coworkers' communication. He also enjoys motivational speaking as a tool to help inspire people to expect more from themselves. He has just finished writing a book on "Reaching Your Full Potential Through Fitness, which he is expecting to be published sometime this year. Ken is very active with his church and very pleased with his life. He has a loving wife, Nancy, and four childrenCorey, Megan, Eric, and Andrea. Den had worked at Parker Furniture in
flooring for Den left Pro-Carpet to work at VHS Floor Fashions. This was more of a comfortable environment for him, because some of his old coworkers from Imperial were also working there. He worked at VHS for about a year until they went bankrupt. A friend of his from Imperial and VHS decided to go into business with him, fifty-fifty. Den and Ralph Henry began working toward opening their own store at the Canadaigua Lake Resort, where there was only one other carpeting store. Den borrowed $25,000 from his father-in-law, George Shaw, on a five-year repayment plan. Between Den and Ralph, they opened their own store with $50,000. Den mainly worked outside the store while Ralph worked inside. Its first year The Floor Store made roughly $350,000 in gross sales. Over the next couple of years, the store made around $500,000 in gross sales. Ralph, being almost fifty years old, was ready for retirement, so Den bought him out in three years. Ralph did, however, stay as an employee. The business averaged 20% growth for each year. They started with 2,000 square feet of floor space, but soon expanded to 4,000 square feet of floor space in a plaza. Although there was very little advertisement, the store still became a success with just word of mouth. Between Den's sixth and seventh year in business, the company grossed over $1 million. Last year the store increased its floor space again to 6,000 square feet and grossed just under $2 million. The store has been a success for ten years now, and Den's thoughts are now turning to the idea of scaling back. He believes the key to being successful is to be honest, up-front, and good old fashion talking person to person. He is also very content with his life, for he has a wonderful wife, Pat and two children, Mitchell and Michelle. Ken and Den were just born in a small town and have only a high school education, but they have both proven that you can achieve your goals if you work hard enough. They are both happy living in New York, but each has said that Pennsylvania is a great place to grow up and to live. Sources:
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Research in Dallas, Texas to become
certified as
an exercise
specialist. He also holds certification as a Medical Exercise Specialist
(M.E.S.) from the Academy of Fitness Professionals. He finally succeeded
in opening a fitness center, which he currently owns and is working at
today. He has had fifteen total years of experience as a personal
trainer and specializes in performance training for fat loss and
fitness.
two to
three years, before he moved to New York to join Ken in the fitness
business. When that didn’t work out ,Den moved to Canadaigua, N.Y., to
return to the flooring industry. He worked at Imperial Floor Fashions in
the sales department. He was the top salesman out of eight others within
a year. Den was soon offered a management position at Pro-Carpet, a
carpet store in Spencerport. After working there for a year ,he decided
that he didn’t like it. It was just a small country store with very
little action and he wasn’t happy.