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The Yankee Express

Faith guided Tim Hare to success selling cars, and Chamber award

Feb 09, 2021 10:08AM ● By Rod Lee

Tim Hare, a founder of Harbro Auto Sales, speaks after being presented with the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce’s “Gerry Gaudette Extra Mile Award.”

Mike Hare, who is one of his father’s four children, recalls how the imposition of discipline went when he and his brother Mark misbehaved as kids.

“If we owned up to it, there would be minimal punishment. But if we tried to weasel out of it…” Mr. Hare said in a telephone conversation in December. There was a hint of a smile in Mike Hare’s voice as he spoke those words.

We were chatting about Tim Hare of family-owned and operated Harbro Auto Sales in Whitinsville and Webster, who received the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce’s 2020 Gerry Gaudette “Extra Mile Award” at the organization’s 42nd annual meeting on November 19. Mike Hare did not see the ceremony, which was conducted virtually for attendees who had pre-registered and which featured a keynote speech by Maj. Gen. Thomas E. Murphy.

Maj. Gen. Murphy is director of the Critical Technology Task Force at the Department of Defense and a product of Oxford High School and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

“That’s really cool and a great credit to my father,” Mike Hare said, of the honor bestowed on Tim Hare. “He didn’t even tell me that he won that award.”

With the humility he has long been known for (and which many would agree is uncharacteristic of a car salesman), Tim Hare attributed his success in a business he and his brother Dave Hare started on Linwood Avenue in 1973 to his parents, to people who have helped him along the way, and to fully embracing Jesus Christ. “I was raised on the words of Jesus,” he said, after accepting the award from Gerry Gaudette’s son Lee Gaudette of Gaudette Insurance. “In my younger years, I rejected them. Thirty-eight years ago, the Lord changed the course of my life and my wife’s (Jane Hare).”

Mike Hare was not surprised to hear that his father pointed out in his brief remarks on November 19 that the phrase “extra mile” originated not with the Chamber but with Jesus Christ—in the Bible.

  His dad’s faith-based approach to business “just dovetailed into my brother and I’s,” Mike Hare said. “My grandfather was like that. My dad tells me a story about how he gave up drinking and smoking and used the money he saved to buy a little lake cottage in the 80s that we all still enjoy.

“I remember my dad driving around in a muscle car and drinking with his friends,” Mike Hare said. Turning completely to Jesus Christ, “it’s changed him one hundred eighty degrees. He was never one to put up a cross or a big fish, he is quiet that way. He has always told me he doesn’t want too many rewards on earth, they’ll come in heaven.”

Tim Hare has turned Harbro Auto Sales over to his sons (it is now a third-generation business with the addition of other family members). He and Jane Hare are involved with providing the battery-powered “Action Track Chair” to disabled veterans and others whose physical limitations prevent them from getting around. But when the pandemic hit last March and “none of us knew what was going on and we had to pretty much close the doors” for a time, “my dad saw what was happening and we talked it through. Even though he is not active in the business, we came up with the best plan we could, all things considered. Dad was more like a guiding light person for us. He’s a phone call away and he always answers his phone. Who better than the guy who founded it?” to seek advice from, Mike Hare said.

“He has most recently been helping us find cars. Many leases were expiring but being extended because of a lack of inventory. A lot of the vehicles we would normally buy are not there.”

  Mike Hare said that with his dad’s help Harbro has survived the pandemic so far. “Eight staff did not want to come back. All in all it blended out. We gave the Salvation Army some money. We are so thankful and feel blessed, even though people aren’t driving as much.”

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Contact Rod Lee at [email protected] or 774-232-2999.