BOSTON: A Bradford native has made a successful career for himself in the Boston, Mass., area, but he hasn’t forgot about his roots.

Douglas Eymer was recently featured in Boston Voyager magazine in an article in which he outlined his journey to owning Eymer Brand Laboratories + Think Tank.

“I was born and raised in a Western Pennsylvania town of Bradford, a former oil boomtown most famous as the birthplace and home of Zippo ‘Windproof’ Lighters,” Douglas related to Boston Voyager.

“My parents were first-generation college graduates and both teachers within the Bradford public school system. My mom was a reading specialist, and my father was a high school guidance counselor.”
The most influential person in Douglas’s life, the states, was Bud Jenkins, who was a golf professional at Pennhills Country Club. Douglas worked for Bud.

“Bud had experienced, embraced and sold me on the world beyond western Pennsylvania,” he said.

Douglas also talked about his two sisters: Jane, who lives outside of Denver, Colo., and Martha, who lives outside of Rochester, N.Y. Both are teachers.

After schooling at Edinboro State College near Erie and Rochester Institute of Technology, “I packed up my 1977 Chevrolet Nova and moved to Boston, where I was determined to find employment.”

He soon found himself competing for what he was led to believe was a single job opening at Selame Design Associates against a woman named Selene Carlo — a Carnegie Mellon graduate who was “extraordinarily sophisticated and slightly intimidating for a Western Pennsylvania and Upstate New York ‘greenhorn.’”

Douglas and and Selene eventually wed.

The pair opened their own design firm, Benchley and Wentworth, which eventually changed to Eymer Design. In 2000, Partner + Simons acquired Eymer Design in 2000, and he worked for Partner + Simon for a few years before founding Eymer Brand Laboratories + Think Tank. He set up in Cohasset, Mass.

See the whole article at bostonvoyager.com/interview/meet-douglas-eymer-selene-carlo-eymer-eymer-brand-laboratories-think-tank-scituate-town-approximately-20-miles-south-boston/