Business owners weigh in on getting back to work — and what it looks like

Hardware store entrepreneur Michael Wynn wins the day when it comes to finding one way to beat back the pandemic: shower hundreds of front line employees with lots thank you bonuses, customer service bonuses, meals, gift cards and other random tokens of appreciation — in total more than $1.3 million worth of goodies in the pandemic. “We really wanted to acknowledge the effort people are putting forward,” says Wynn, president of Naples-based Sunshine Ace Hardware.

“A lot of places say they treat you like family,” adds Wynn, “but we really walk the walk here. I’m not saying we’re perfect — we just work hard every day at it.”

Wynn, a Business Observer Top Entrepreneur in 2020, started working at his family’s Ace hardware business when he six years old. Now 49, he oversees a network of nine hardware stores in Collier, Lee, Charlotte and Pinellas counties stores and some 430 employees. Sunshine Ace also operates two Crowder Bros. Ace Hardware stores and two Crowder’s Gifts & Gadgets shops in Manatee County. And Sunshine Ace plans to open another hardware store, in North Naples, next year. The bonuses were paid out to the company’s 390 or so frontline employees, people who Wynn says are the lifeblood of any retailer.