From the Brockton Enterprise June 19th Edition

Business prodigy
By Alice C. Elwell, Enterprise correspondent

MIDDLEBORO: School is tough for Eric Gately.
He doesn't like it and compares it to a jail sentence.

"It's boring," he said. "School never did it for me."

But at 14, Eric is reading Quicken spreadsheets to determine the profit margin for the business he started when he was 12; a business that earned him $13,000 last summer.

Called Eric's Bait & Tackle, it is a business born of desperation. Faced with a stint at summer camp two years ago, Eric hatched a plan that would release him from the tedious routine of swimming and crafts.

His mom, Patricia Gately, manages the Boston Harbor Shipyard Marina in East Boston and she didn't want her youngest child at home alone the first summer all his sister and brothers were working. So she decided to send him to camp. When Eric got the news, he begged to go to work with her.

The answer was no.

"He didn't talk to us for three days," Patricia Gately said.

But those three days weren't the quiet mope of a stubborn boy. Eric was formulating his plan. He asked his parents if he could cash in a certificate of deposit, have an old freezer in the basement and hawk his wares on the East Boston pier.

Eric noticed that fishermen at his mother's marina had to come ashore to buy bait.

With the blessing of his parents, Eric worked out a deal with the marina: In exchange for space, he sweeps the 990-foot pier, does landscapes and paints.

Patricia Gately set the guidelines.

"It's your business, your maintenance," she told him. "It kept him very busy."

During the last two summers Eric has been building up his bait business and honing his business skills, selling live eels, sea worms, frozen mackerel, herring, squid and clams. This year he is adding a line of tackle and he also repairs reels and rods.

The eighth-grader has a business checking account, Massachusetts dealer's license, a wholesale license, a state tax number and a Web site. He orders stock and sponsors fishing tournaments.

And it all started with the threat of being sent to summer camp.

Eric describes himself as just an OK student.

His parents say he's found a different way to be successful.

Last summer Eric made $13,000 and rolled it all back into his business. He is also saving up for a 27-foot Grady White with center console so he can deliver bait directly to customers on their boats.

Spending money comes from selling junk metal to Zion's junkyard in Middleboro. Over the winter, Eric made enough to buy a $600 compound bow.

He takes archery lessons every Tuesday night at Reedy's Archery in Middleboro Center and practices target shooting at the Easton Rod & Gun Club.

The lean, 5-foot 10-inch tall young man is the quintessential outdoorsman, and comes alive with a bow in his hand.

He shoots black powder, shotguns, handguns and skeet.

"He puts his father to shame," John Gately chuckled, referring to himself.

Kristen Gately, Eric's older sister, a marketing major at Johnson and Wales in Denver, said she was glad to get out of the house when she went west, because she was a moving target for Eric and his paintballs.

While very proud of her son's business accomplishment, Patricia Gately worries about his schooling.

Eric has hopes to be an underwater welder and the family was excited to learn he was recently accepted at Bristol-Plymouth Regional High School in Taunton.

The Gatelys make huge sacrifices to ensure Eric will succeed.

After working 50-60 hours a week at Bay State Gas Company in Brockton, John Gately agreed to get up at 5 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays to drive Eric to the pier so he could start selling bait by 6 a.m.

John doesn't look at it as sacrificing his weekends.

"I'd do it for all my kids," he said.

Patricia Gately drives her son to the wholesalers at the crack of dawn most mornings in the summer.

"I never thought I'd ever touch a sea worm or an eel," she said.

But she does for Eric.

"I know what the outcome is going to be for Eric — success."

Eric's grandfather, 82-year-old Fallon Gately of Brockton, taught him the fine art of junking — or collecting scrap metal.

"He knows everything there is to know," Eric said, proudly calling himself a "fifth generation junker."

Not all of the metal was sold this winter.

Eric melted down lead from a keel he got off an old sailboat and made weights to sell at the bait shop.

Eric pulls out a chart of Boston Harbor and points to the hot spots for stripers. He's well know on the dock and seasoned fishermen trade secrets with him.

Last year, the Great Faun area of Boston Harbor was where the stripers were hitting, "on an orange tube with a sea worm on the end," Eric said.

"This is a stepping stone for Eric's future," Patricia Gately said.

"He's an outdoor kid. He's not a student.

This year Eric's Bait & Tackle Shop has expanded and will be triple the size of last year.

John Gately spent his vacation renovating his son's shop to include three freezers, a refrigerator unit and an eel tank.

All this because Eric says, "I didn't want to go to camp."