05/17/2005
Joe Kelly's small-business training started early -- at the age of five. Kelly wasn't actually on the payroll, but he grew up in his father's business, Jay-Kay Wines and Liquors, which the elder Kelly started in 1951.
"I was always there," he recalls, noting that he worked at his father's store after school and on weekends, from grade school through college.
So it's not surprising that Kelly's first order of business when he finished his schooling was to start a business of his own. Armed with an undergraduate degree in economics, an MBA, an interest in real estate and first-hand business know-how picked up from his dad, Kelly and his father started Kelly Enterprises Inc., which owns and manages commercial real estate, in 1979.
Kelly Enterprises began with a strip center the Kellys built on land they owned adjacent to the family's liquor store. Kelly's yen for real estate grew over the years, and he presided over 48 rental units at his peak. He also bought Jay-Kay Wines and Liquors when his father retired in 1982 and ran that until 2003.
Kelly's initial association with NFIB was through Jay-Kay.
"I was always in favor of [NFIB's] philosophy and the way they lobbied in the state and federal governments," he says. "I was very proud to join."
Topping his list of issues is the death tax: "You work hard and you build up a business, then sometimes it has to be dismantled to pay the estate tax. A business should be able to be handed down in a family without threatening its survival."
About seven years ago, Kelly was recruited to serve on the NFIB/New Jersey Leadership Council, and he has remained on the council since. He also serves as chair of the NFIB/New Jersey SAFE Trust, a position he has held for the last four years.
Kelly has attended one of NFIB's Small Business Summits in Washington,D.C., and he has hopes to attend others in the future. On the state level, he was instrumental in organizing NFIB/New Jersey's May 11 gubernatorial forum, which brought together the key gubernatorial candidates for a dialogue with small-business owners.
"I've grown up in small business my entire life, and I've seen a lot of ways small business has been treated that just isn't right," he notes. "Large business seems to get the advantages, but small business is the backbone of this country."
