Defying Odds and Building an Empire: Gina Schaefer's Journey from Tech Reject to Ace Hardware Tycoon

This week we welcome Gina Schaefer, the mastermind behind a flourishing empire of Ace Hardware stores. With the grit and tenacity of an underdog, Gina shares how she transcended the title of 'tech reject' to build a business spanning 13 locations, 300 teammates, and an impressive revenue of over $50 million. What’s more, she gives us a sneak peek into her unique company culture, her strategies to thrive amidst e-commerce giants, and the inspirational narrative of navigating the turbulent tides of business.

Pulling back the curtain, Gina unveils her journey of transitioning from her CEO role and the creation of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), a model she deems a wealth generator and an equity bridge. She also touches on her company's unexpected reputation as a Recovery Hardware store, affirming the power of community support for individuals in recovery. Wrapping up, Gina broaches why she chose ESOP for her empire and muses on why many private companies steer clear from it. Tune in for invaluable insights and moving stories. We promise it's not one to miss!

About Gina Schaefer:
Gina Schaefer is the founder and former CEO of a chain of hardware stores as a part of the Ace Hardware Cooperative. With her team, she grew the business to 13 locations with 300 teammates and 50M in revenue. She is also the author of Recovery Hardware which chronicles their growth while hiring from the local recovery community.

Connect with Gina:
Website recoveryhardware.com
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/gina-schaefer-56380a8
Instagram instagram.com/recoveryhardware

This episode is brought to you by Recovery Hardware, how a female-owned hardware business changed the path for people in recovery and helped transform a community.  Learn more at RecoveryHardware.com.

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Transcript

Announcer: 0:00

Entrepreneur, author and financial consultant, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing entrepreneurial business owners create a vision for the future and follow through on their goals and intentions. Ange Onorato is a business growth strategist to blend psychology and business together to create conscious leaders and business owners who impact the world. Founders Forum is a radio show podcast sharing the real stories behind entrepreneurship as founders discover more about themselves, while providing valuable lessons and some fun and entertainment for you. Now here's Marc and Ang.

Marc Bernstein: 0:33

Good morning America. It's a very beautiful day here in Philadelphia in October, a day that we should be experiencing fall, but we're experiencing a little bit more summer and I'm very excited about today's show. We have a great guest who's going to bring a lot of energy. I know We've got Enge who's on fire today, and we've got a lot of stuff happening in Philadelphia sports which I don't want to bore you with outside of Philadelphia, except that it's a great story that's going, a couple great stories going on right now.

Marc Bernstein: 1:02

The Phillies just won their first playoff game last night, I believe, and we talked about this and we'll talk about, maybe get into the reason but I believe the Phillies will win the World Series. I never make those kind of predictions, but I'm saying that and there's a reason. I believe that, and it's related to the story that Enge is going to tell you about the Eagles are on fire, they're undefeated, getting criticism from all corners, especially in Philadelphia, but you can't argue with 4 and 0, because it's the only way to get to 5 and 0. So, according to Nick Siriani, which is true, so, given that, enge, what's on your mind about this?

Ang Onorato: 1:38

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I'm super excited 80 degrees in October, it's red October, all the reasons that you just mentioned. But we were chatting offline and I'm super excited to have our guest weigh in on this when she tells her story, because I think there's a lot of things that are similar, but the story of Trey Turner. For anyone that doesn't know or doesn't follow baseball, baseball is a very streaky sport to begin with, right when you can get into a slump, it can last a very long time. And so when the Phillies brought on Trey Turner from the Nationals, which is the hometown of our guest here so there's a connection there as well but paid a lot of money for him and he hit a really bad slump this summer I mean really, really bad. And Philly is notorious for being really rough on their teams and coaches and collectively they decided that they weren't going to boo him, that the entire stadium was going to stand up and give a standing ovation.

Marc Bernstein: 2:27

And when they did, that, which, I just have to say, is the opposite of what Philadelphia is known for, of anything, yeah.

Ang Onorato: 2:31

Again, this is the city that throws snowballs, famously at Santa Claus, as we talked about. So when they decided that they were going to stand up and be positive and really boost this guy up it's less stuff that movies are made of I mean, since that day, he has been batting like a scorching record. He had a huge game in game, one win last night at the World Series. So I just think it's an amazing story and celebrating your teammates and lifting them up, they're going to do their part and turn around, lift you up. So, yeah, it's a great story.

Marc Bernstein: 3:02

It's the Philadelphia sports miracle right now? Absolutely, but before we introduce Gina officially, gina, I think there's some parallels to what's happened in your business and maybe you might want to comment on that, and then we'll get into your story.

Gina Schaefer: 3:15

Hi. Well, I think you know one of the one of the like far, far back parallels is that the neighborhood that I opened my first location in was really an underdog. It had, you know, had had sat dormant for decades and boarded up houses and no businesses, very few businesses, and so when the community members started to rally around bringing it back and attracting new residents, it became this groundswell of support that ended up turning Logan Circle into just one of the best neighborhoods in Washington DC. So I think there's a lot of parallels. Yeah, go Philadelphia.

Marc Bernstein: 3:47

Well, that sounds like a Philly story right there? Yeah, exactly, and there I think there might be some, and we can get into it when we talk about the culture of your company, but I think there might be some parallels there about people lifting each other up as well. So with that, let's introduce Gina Schaefer, who is the founder and former CEO of a chain of hardware stores that are part of the Ace Hardware corporate cooperative, which probably everybody knows, and with her team she grew the business to 13 locations in a relatively short period of time, with 300 teammates and over $50 million in revenue. She's also the author of Recovery Hardware, which chronicles her growth while hiring from the local recovery community, which is alludes a little bit to the story she was just telling. So with that, gina, what I'd like to ask you is how in the heck did you get into the hardware business Because I know it wasn't something that was natural for you and what was your journey leading up to that and how did you get there and what's happened since?

Gina Schaefer: 4:48

So many, so many things to tell you.

Gina Schaefer: 4:49

I'm working on a funny speech right now where I talk about how I got started in. The first time I used the Power Tool was five months after I'd opened my first hardware store. So if that tells you anything about the zero experience I had, I was 30 years old, a tech reject. I called myself during the boom and bust of the mid 90s of the tech, the tech industry, and I was laid off three or four times and I had moved to the neighborhood that I mentioned that people were moving to because it was an inexpensive place to live.

Gina Schaefer: 5:16

And the final time that I got laid off I said that's it, I'm going to not work in the tech industry, I'm going to do something to help this community. And really we wanted a hardware store. The closest local hardware store was far enough away that it was kind of frustrating to get to, challenging to get to and none of my neighbors wanted to go to the suburbs to go to a big box and we didn't have any big box hardware stores in DC at the time. So I sort of and a whim said why can't I open a hardware store? And I reached out to Ace Hardware and I did.

Marc Bernstein: 5:48

That's wonderful. By the way, it's a separate issue, but maybe I'll bring it up now. I have a long-term client that's a fourth generation hardware store that at one time I may have mentioned this to you when we first met over they had over 300,000 items in their store because it's a four-story store and they have holes in the wall and through the holes the chains are coming out and they cut the chains that people need. Awesome, all these little nooks and crannies and it's. But ultimately it's a sad story because they're about to liquidate now and too much pressure from the big box stores, from the Home Depot's and the other stores. So how I know your chain it's not your chain, but your group of stores is still very successful. How is the obstacle of the big box stores and how have you dealt with that and how is the business doing in relation to that?

Gina Schaefer: 6:44

Well, I think, for us, online retailers scare me a lot more than the big boxes. Now, I mean, we've been sort of fortunate in our two major markets. We're in DC and Baltimore, and then we have a couple stores in Northern Virginia. Well, baltimore still doesn't have any big box retailers in the city limits, so we are essentially the only game in town, and so we've managed to stay relevant in our communities by being very community-centric and being the only game in some cases.

Gina Schaefer: 7:12

In DC we do have a Home Depot in the Lowe's, but I really worry more about people ordering online, frankly, than I do them getting in their cars or a cab and going to a big box. And we've really stayed relevant One by being very community-centric. Again, we do a lot of in-store events which you can't find at an online retailer or not so much at big boxes, and then really modernizing a lot of the. It's a very multi-generational kind of old school in a positive way, but an old school business model, and a lot of retailers haven't modernized to keep up with inventory technologies and pricing plans, e-commerce, social media, and we have really, really tried to focus on all of those things.

Marc Bernstein: 7:56

I just wonder, though, as someone who's not very handy, I like to go now I have to go to the big box stores, but I used to love to go to this hardware store to get advice, because I don't know how to use that stuff you can't get. If I buy it online, I don't know inevitably buy the wrong tool. Isn't that something that works in your favor to a certain extent?

Gina Schaefer: 8:13

Most people think that we're recession-proof and we are certainly more recession-proof than a lot of businesses. Right, because if your toilet breaks you have to fix it. It's not a fluff purchase. But there are still lots of reports that show that and I'm not gonna spout numbers because I'll get them wrong. But a large percentage of people are still buying a lot of things they would buy at a hardware store online and, frankly, we sell more things like candles and greeting cards in some cases than some of the tools that we sell. We've really broadened to become more of a general store in a lot of cases, because people, at least in DC, don't think of us necessarily for power tools or hand tools.

Marc Bernstein: 8:50

Ah, greeting cards. That's the business I grew up in. That's actually in my book, so I'll tell you about that. I have a connection for you there. Okay, great, yeah, yeah, but interesting. So you started your store I think was it 2003 or 2003? So you built I'm gonna say that's somewhat of a hardware store empire. I know you wouldn't call it that. I love that word, isn't it? It sort of is, and you did it in 20 years, which is pretty amazing. And now go ahead. Well, I'd like to hear a little bit how that happened, but then also how you've sort of transitioned into your new role and new leadership in the company.

Gina Schaefer: 9:32

Yeah. So the down and dirty with the expansion we opened. So we, as my husband. He joined me about three months after I opened that first store. He decided that it would be fun for him to be in the hardware business too, so he quit his tech job and joined me. He's currently the company's CFO. We opened the first store in 2003, and then the second one in 2005, and then one a year for 10 years after that, and then it gets a little wonky, the lineage after that.

Gina Schaefer: 9:54

But historically banks had discriminated against lending to cooperatives. They didn't understand. There's not one person to pin ownership on and the model's a little strange. So the federal government chartered National Cooperative Bank in the 1970s, and so when we were looking to open our second location, we were introduced to National Cooperative Bank, ncb, and they've funded our expansion. So over the ensuing years we built 10 stores from scratch, purchased five and had the close two for non-performance, and so we were fortunate to have a really strong banking partner and be in markets that really supported us, and so we grew fairly quickly. We don't own any of our properties. People always say you know, how many of your buildings do you own? We sacrificed buying expensive real estate for expansion. I think it would have really hindered any kind of expansion because, you know, any property in DC is millions of dollars, and so there was a trade-off there for us.

Marc Bernstein: 10:46

Can we back up one second and just the cooperative concept? How does that work in the Ace Hardware world?

Gina Schaefer: 10:52

Yeah, ace is a purchasing cooperative, and so their sole mission they're actually gonna be 100 years old in 19, in 2024. Their sole mission is to get better pricing for the members, and so we pay a membership fee. It gives us one vote and they warehouse products that they negotiate prices for in various warehouses around the country, and then we buy from them. They do a lot more than that. They have amazing wraparound services for the members now, like training and merchandising, and you know they host conventions, but at its core, they purchase products to get better pricing for us and warehouse it.

Ang Onorato: 11:23

Yeah. So, gina, I was gonna ask a similar question. I'm very curious, and I think a lot of our listeners might be curious about this as well, as the world and the market kind of is what it is the idea for you you initially to choose a franchise type model versus maybe starting something from scratch or on your own. And how did you select this particular franchise? Did they have that cooperating then as well? Because I think that's one of the things that might prevent some people. It's like, well, it's a franchise, but they're very pricey, and then I still have to kind of figure it all out on my own, like, maybe walk us through a little bit about that. And how did that benefit you to be able to propel and do that one a year after that?

Gina Schaefer: 12:01

Yeah, so there actually aren't any hardware franchises in the United States, so I didn't have a franchise. Joining a franchise wasn't an option. So if you want to start a hardware store, you either join a cooperative or you buy from a wholesaler, or you do some combination of the two, and so this is a very simple example that I think clarifies why a cooperative is so valuable. I probably have I don't know 2000 vendors in my store, 3000 vendors in my store, and my stores aren't that big, and so it's a significant number. You can imagine if I had to buy from 3000 people individually, 3000 companies, and pay 3000 companies individually, what a nightmare. It would be A streamlines that for us, because we buy directly from them, we pay one bill and then they deal with all of the aggregated bills from all of the members, and so that one example alone makes joining the co-op financially, makes it make sense.

Ang Onorato: 12:53

Well, yeah, that's great, and I'm sure a lot of people don't realize that, so that's a good pro tip, yeah.

Marc Bernstein: 12:59

So, gina, after 20 years, you're no longer CEO and your ownership situation has changed, so let's talk about how you arrived at that decision and how you did it, and where all that stands now.

Gina Schaefer: 13:11

So people had started asking what my exit strategy was going to be in 2003 and I was young and I had no idea why I didn't think about it. Fast forward 17 years, I decided that it was time to start thinking about it. Covid hit the protests in Washington that happened in 21, 22, or 2020, all marched down the street where my office is and it made a very emotional impact on my husband and I and on our leadership team, because we realized that, as a small business, we could probably do something to help create generational wealth, help bridge the equity divide, just do something. And when we started researching succession plans, we found the ESOP model and we realized that that was the something that we could do, that the folks who were helping us build the business could participate in equity ownership of the business and that would ultimately be the way we left the business.

Marc Bernstein: 14:02

Well, we've got more questions on that, but it's time for a quick break and we'll pick up there right after our commercial.

Announcer: 14:09

In her book Recovery Hardware, gina Schaefer shares the powerful true story building a chain of hardware stores to help revitalize urban communities, provide opportunities for everyone to thrive and gathering places for neighbors. Once a lively hub, washington DC's Logan Circle crumbled in the aftermath of the 1968 riots. Decades of neglect led to border-up buildings, overgrown and littered sidewalks and widespread of drug use and addiction. When she was laid off for the fourth time, she decided to do something about the blight. As she likes to say, just because the world underestimates us doesn't mean our fate is pre-written. Order Recovery Hardware today, wherever you buy books or go to recoveryhardwarecom.

Marc Bernstein: 14:54

We are back on Founders Forum with our guest today, Gina Schaefer. And Gina, you were just saying before the break about that you found the ESOP model to be the right way to go in terms of ownership succession. So for those who don't know how an ESOP works, I know you've become a little bit maybe not an expert, but very familiar with the concept. Maybe explain that. And also along with that, I know, came a change in the leadership of the company. We can talk about that as well.

Gina Schaefer: 15:21

Sure. So an ESOP is an employee stock ownership plan. It basically operates like a qualified retirement plan. So for the listeners that understand how a 401k works, for example, a company creates a trust and the trust buys the business on behalf of the employees, and so Marc, my husband and I sold 30% of the business so far. It'll probably end up being probably a seven-year plan to get the company to 100% employee ownership. There's a board that's created that includes a trustee who's responsible for making sure that everything is working as it should on behalf of the employees.

Gina Schaefer: 16:00

Esops are heavily regulated by the Department of Labor, so it causes a lot of work, but it also gives you a lot of comfort to know that what you're doing is in the best interest of the employees that are becoming the stewards of the business, the owners of the business. And then, as part of that transition, was also my transition out as CEO, and so, when we announced in August of I guess, 2021 that we were creating the ESOP, we just went through our second valuation this year. When we announced that we were creating the ESOP, we also announced that I would be leading in two years and thus starting an executive search for a new CEO.

Marc Bernstein: 16:37

First of all, great simple description of an ESOP. So, as you know, I'm a financial planner. I'm in this business, I might add, and I know this is not what drove your decision, because your whole concept from the beginning was to benefit the community, and I know this decision was to benefit your company and the employees. But there are, if you meet the requirements, there are tax benefits for the business owner as well, and I bring this up because a lot of our listeners are business owners and a lot of our guests are business owners, so it's good for them to know about that. But tell me about how you came up with who would lead the company going forward and how that worked.

Gina Schaefer: 17:15

Yeah, thanks for the tidbit on the taxes. I really should write down an elevator pitch because the concept is not that difficult. But when you start explaining it, you know I envision circles and diagrams and I get a little like I get a little flustered because I've never been the financial person in our business.

Marc Bernstein: 17:30

You and I can go on the road together.

Gina Schaefer: 17:32

Let's do it, let's tag team. I will bring the human aspect, you bring the sense.

Marc Bernstein: 17:36

Oh, you get the fun stuff, but anyway.

Gina Schaefer: 17:40

I think we were told that if we had sold the private equity or on the open market, we would have had to have gotten like a 20 or 25% premium, because the tax benefits that we as sellers my husband and I as sellers and the business, as now the ESOP owners benefit the tax benefits that we get.

Gina Schaefer: 17:56

So I was in a very fortunate situation to have as part of my ace peer group Craig Smith. Craig comes from a multi-generational hardware family that's been around for I don't know, maybe 75 years, and he owned a store in Fairfax, Virginia, and so Marc and I approached him in 2020, I'm sorry, 2022, I guess and said you know, would you be willing to? We would like to purchase your company, bring your teammates on as part of our ESOP and then hire you as our CEO. What do you think about that? And that was a lot for him to take in. He was very excited about it, but what he had to really think about was the fact that he would be relinquishing ownership. Right At that point, he was the 100% proprietor of his own hardware store. He has growth aspirations. He's an amazing leader, but in order to take this opportunity, he had to agree to sell his ownership stake because we wanted, we were committed to creating 100% ESOP.

Ang Onorato: 18:57

Right, gina, so we have enough time to chat on this, about your employees and about the community and the impact. Tell us a little bit about you know. I understand from a financial and an organizational perspective why you chose the ESOP model, but let's talk a little bit about your book and why you've chosen in many ways to open up your community and your business to bring on the type of employees and so you're. In my opinion, you're really giving back to the community in multiple ways. So talk to us a little bit about that.

Gina Schaefer: 19:26

Well, I think at its core, the community gave back to me. So when we opened in Logan Circle and I didn't know anything about hardware and I might have opened with four employees, I mean I knew nothing really and this and the neighborhood itself was just coming back from, you know, decades of neglect, it was the community that supported me and and filled my cash registers and made sure we were able to expand and hire more people. So that made me really feel a sense of responsibility not beholden to, but I really started to understand the value of a community based business.

Marc Bernstein: 19:57

I just, I just have to. I'm sorry, I just have to point out it's like the Phillies fans and trade Turner. We came full circle there we go, there's a connection Anyway, sorry, sorry to interrupt.

Gina Schaefer: 20:10

No, no, no we needed to make that connection. I firmly believe in the concept of a main street. If you close your eyes and you think about a main street that you know and love, that main street is not online retailers and big box retailers they may serve their purpose in today's history but communities, small towns, cities we deserve and should have, I think, strong, vibrant main streets. And so I realized very early on that that's the sandbox I wanted to play in. My very first teammate I had two very first teammate stories. I'll tell you quickly. Tommy was a returning citizen. He had been in prison for 17 years. I did not know that because I thought that it was terrible to lead the felony checkbox on my application. Now, in the ensuing 20 years, most states, and maybe all at this point, have banned the box, which is the felony checkbox on applications. At the time we banned it organically because we just didn't like it.

Gina Schaefer: 21:02

I hired Tommy. He worked with us for 10 years. He taught me more lessons in that first year in particular than I would learn going forward. But he had been in prison for seven years. Nobody would have hired Tommy and thought this is going to be a teacher. This man is going to teach me something.

Gina Schaefer: 21:18

My second teammate was a gentleman who came from the Whitman Walker Addiction Services Clinic down the street. He was six weeks into a rehabilitation program for a crystal meth addiction and stayed with us for maybe 11 months before he left. He and I are great friends now. He left really angry, said he never wanted to see us again, but went back and told all of his friends at the clinic that they should come see that lady for a job. You can sort of track the trajectory with the stories in my book. That was Shane. Shane sent me somebody. He sent me somebody. He sent me somebody. All of these people coming from this addiction services program down the street became my non-traditional teachers. They taught me leadership lessons and human lessons and just all sorts of things that made growing this business so amazing to me.

Gina Schaefer: 22:13

And then 2014, I guess, was the year Mark Watson, who works on my team he's worked with us for 20 years was one of those people. He came to me one day and he said you know, the community has started calling our store recovery hardware. And I cried because you can't give yourself a nickname. I hadn't set out to do this. I mean it happened very organically. I deserve zero credit for doing this. And then to find out that anybody, even if it was just two people in the community, thought that that was a good name. It meant a lot to me and people had asked me for years to write a book and I was like no one wants to read a book about a chick Running a hardware store, like I used to say that. But when he said this place is named, nicknamed, recovery hardware, I was like that's the book. That is a fantastic name and I'm gonna write it because I want people to know how awesome my team is.

Marc Bernstein: 23:01

So so, gina? So so, ange and I were trying to help you craft your future career here a little while ago, and I don't think it's eSOP Another cherry. E-sop could be a little piece of the story, but what you just talked about was so inspiring. You know to talk about communities and the part of the Recovery community within the community which, by the way, last week we had a woman, dr Terry Webb, who is 90 years old and 91.

Ang Onorato: 23:32

I'm sorry.

Marc Bernstein: 23:34

That's right. That's right. And she, her new brand is called trust Terry, and for no pay. She's just putting herself out there and distributing her booklets and books and she's done a lot. She's just of service to people in terms of how you know, how she can help people that are recovering, and and her thing is that In interventions you have to deal with the family first, which leads to another guest. We had Mike Laverde a couple of months ago who has a, a, a business in Arizona called family first intervention, so he's sort of the pioneer of Bringing back that concept in the whole recovery intervention stories. So we have an unintentional theme here on our show, but it's such a great thing to be talking about.

Ang Onorato: 24:23

So and I apologize, Marc, I mean interrupt you as well, but I almost take that one step forward to complete that circle, which I think then, Gina, comes back to your decision to make an ESOP company, because it's one thing to give people a place to go To heal and be relevant in the community, but then to give them a piece of that ownership and that pride and the trustworthiness and all the things that you talk about in your book. You know the question I have for you and it's just an opinion piece but why don't you think more privately held companies choose this model? I mean, it's just a. It's a. It's a Rejuvenating and regenerating type of thing where people are going to be better employees and more vested if they feel the sense of ownership.

Gina Schaefer: 25:03

Well, I think so. There's only about 6,000 ESOPs nationally. I think that it's just an unknown entity. That's a one I think a lot of people don't know it's an option to. I was. I was Mistaken in thinking that the employees had to actually put in money, and so that was a roadblock for us before I was set straight by somebody smarter than me. And then it's also expensive and time-consuming. I think that it's 100% worth the cost in the time, but if you don't understand the model or have never heard of it, and then and then you don't want to put in the time and effort, it can be a little bit of a challenge.

Marc Bernstein: 25:34

The other thing Expensive to money has to be.

Gina Schaefer: 25:40

It's, it's expensive and we only were able to sell 30% in one tranche, which means I still I'm still majority owner, which is great, but I I could theoretically never get that money if something happened. Now that's not gonna happen, but it's not a one-and-done. You know, if you sell to somebody one day, or private equity, you get your money that day and you're done. You pay a ridiculous amount of taxes which I didn't have to pay, but I think that's why people don't do it.

Marc Bernstein: 26:05

We have very little time left. We were afraid this was gonna happen Real quick. I wanted to ask you about your three-year vision, but we should do that for another show, because we're crafting that as we speak to you, so we're helping you. So. But let me ask you about you've already said this, but just take a moment about your legacy. I think it's all been said, but if you had to sum up what you'd like to see as your legacy, what does that look like?

Gina Schaefer: 26:30

You know, I really just I want my legacy to be the continued success of brick-and-mortar retail, not just hardware stores, but the the communities, the businesses that make Main Street communities vibrant and successful. And I want retail. I want business owners to know that they can hire people from non-traditional backgrounds and Will be successful in their business.

Marc Bernstein: 26:52

So Ang likes to say she's my Robin Quivers to Howard Stern, and Howard Stern ends a lot of those interviews by saying Gina Schaefer, you're here, you've done a lot, you've done it all, you've said it all and it's quite a legacy that you've created in business and in the community and People are going to say great things and I know you're not done yet, so please come back. Yeah.

Gina Schaefer: 27:16

Thank you.

Marc Bernstein: 27:16

Happy back again. Take care everyone. Have a great day and thanks for joining us at Founders Forum.

Announcer: 27:26

We hope you enjoyed your time with Founders Forum today and you found value to take with you throughout your day. Join us again next week for another episode of Founders Forum on WWDB talk radio and always at the Founders Forum Show page at wwwdbamcom.