David Greer
David Greer, the “semi-retired” CEO of Wire Belt Company of America, will receive the Business & Industry Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, adding to the Lifetime Achievement Award he received from the UNH CEO & Family Enterprise Center in 2021.
Greer is humbled by the honors. “We’re a small manufacturing company,” he said. “I just wanted to do the right thing and was surprised by the accolades.”
Greer will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at BIA’s 111th Annual Dinner and Awards Celebration, presented by Eversource, Oct. 23 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Manchester. Teresa Rosenberger, senior advisor with the Bernstein Shur law firm, and New Hampshire Senate President Jeb Bradley will also receive Lifetime Achievement Awards, sponsored by Whelen Engineering Company. The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester will receive BIA’s New Hampshire Advantage Award, sponsored by Bank of America. (For a list of past winners, visit bit.ly/BIAhonorees.)
Wire Belt, now based in Bedford, has manufactured conveyors and conveyor belting for over 60 years, supplying industries as varied as food and beverage, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, electronics, environmental services and automotive. In addition to New Hampshire, it has factories in the United Kingdom and Germany.
Greer, who adds “I’m mostly retired” after saying “semi-retired,” joined the family business after graduating from the University of Maine, Orono, with a degree in manufacturing engineering technology. He became CEO in 1980 at age 31, admitting he “was very young, inexperienced with no confidence.”
Greer was born in Boston and grew up in Lynnfield, Mass. He relocated Wire Belt to New Hampshire in 1989, setting up in Londonderry, after outgrowing its Winchester, Mass., location. The “New Hampshire advantage” and real estate market were key factors.
“New Hampshire’s tax structure was better and cheaper,” he added.
Greer deflects from individual honors, pointing to Wire Belt being named to Business NH Magazine’s “Top 10 Companies to Work for in NH” three times, winning the top spot once. Wire Belt was also Business NH’s 2015 “Manufacturing Business of the Year.” Being recognized as one of the “Best Companies to Work for in NH” almost every year since 2008 put Wire Belt on the map, he said. But getting to that point was not easy.
“I joined a peer group when I took over, and that was probably the most important thing I did for my professional development,” he said. “The first group talked about values, and that’s where it started. It took a while for me to develop my values and share them. The value match between leader, company and employee is very important.”
Wire Belt stretches back to 1919 when his great-grandfather, Jesse Wade Greer, founded the J.W. Greer Company in Cambridge, Mass. The company manufactured some of the world’s first automated confectionary and bakery equipment. The family sold J.W. Greer in the 1960s, but kept the smaller Wire Belt Company.
Greer said his grandfather, Fred Greer, was a “strong individual” with Yankee values: Stay conservative, over-engineer, don’t go into debt and do what you say you’re going to do. The core values remain in this now fifth-generation family business, but Greer acknowledges the challenges of family-run enterprises.
“There’s a whole other factor of complication over regular businesses and my family is no different,” said Greer, one of five siblings. “My grandfather was very tough with my dad, and my dad didn’t want me to have that same experience.”
With the family dynamic in mind, Greer became active in the UNH CEO & Family Enterprise Center, serving multiple terms as chair of its advisory board.
Executive Director and CEO Michelline Dufort said the center is stronger due to Greer’s leadership and involvement.
“He’s been a consistent and engaged member for decades in our world where family businesses best learn from each other as they navigate succession planning and generational transfer,” Dufort said. “He’s made a difference by listening, sharing and advising so many of his peers, and we truly would not be the organization we are today without his wise and warm counsel.”
Greer has handed Wire Belt’s reins to his nephew Jon Greer, who became president in 2023 following a successful run as a business consultant in Seattle. Greer said he carefully planned the transition over four years. The two are now focused on strengthening Jon’s oversight of Wire Belt’s overseas operations, which Greer admits can be complicated. Greer continues to share his leadership experience with his nephew, who followed him in serving on the CEO & Family Enterprise Center’s advisory board.
“I saw what my granddad did with my dad and what my dad did with me,” Greer said. “I saw what being too controlling and too hands-off did. I was allowed to find my own way and made so many mistakes getting there. I did find my way. The key was just trying to keep myself as a mentor versus either end of the spectrum.”
Strong family values remain Wire Belt’s North Star, Greer said. “My philosophy for business is pretty simple: Tell people what you’re going to do and go do it. And treat everyone with respect.”
Greer’s involvement in his community and state includes working with the NH Bring Back the Trades organization and serving on BIA’s board of directors. Whether it’s running Wire Belt or volunteering his expertise, Greer points to a twofold personal mission.
“I wanted to show our community that businesses can do good,” he said. “The other reason is that I want to grow manufacturing in New Hampshire. I don’t understand how a country can be successful without making stuff. I just don’t see how that works. During COVID we saw all the supply issues, that all things are made in China. You have to make stuff. That’s where real economic growth comes from.”
Teresa Rosenberger
Teresa Rosenberger, a senior advisor with Bernstein Shur, will receive the Business & Industry Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award this fall. During an interview about the honor, Rosenberger said she should write a book about her time as a speech writer in the offices of Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
It’s a chapter in the amazing life of one of the most highly respected government affairs advisors in New Hampshire.
Rosenberger will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at BIA’s 111th Annual Dinner and Awards Celebration, presented by Eversource, Oct. 23 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Manchester. David Greer, CEO of Wire Belt Company of America, and New Hampshire Senate President Jeb Bradley will also receive Lifetime Achievement Awards, sponsored by Whelen Engineering Company.
The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester will receive BIA’s New Hampshire Advantage Award, sponsored by Bank of America. (For a list of past winners, visit bit.ly/BIAhonorees.)
Rosenberger’s resume also includes serving as president of Devine Strategies, president of Fairpoint Communications and director of government relations for McLane Middleton.
Born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, Rosenberger earned a journalism degree from UNC Chapel Hill in 1971. After graduating, she wanted to travel to Europe with friends, but her father said she had to look for a job. So, she headed to Washington and applied to only top news outlets like the Washington Post and U.S. News & World Report.
“I was thinking I wouldn’t get a job, and then my dad would let me go to Europe,” Rosenberger said. “At an interview with U.S. News, I typed 13 words in a minute with nine errors. So, not good, but they offered me a job on the spot.”
Preferring Europe, she talked to her journalism professor, who advised: You didn’t graduate at the top of your class. You can’t type. You know how many of your classmates would want that job?
“I didn’t end up going to Europe,” she said about taking the job.
Six months later, she was hired in Nixon’s office. Rosenberger wrote speeches for several administration members and white papers for the president, detailing areas he was visiting, the backgrounds of who he was meeting with, the political environment and more.
She started six weeks before Watergate. “The White House would give you a telephone directory, everyone by name and their subject matter,” she said. “The break-in happened at Watergate, and the guards came in the next morning and asked for the directories. You were seeing names in the newspaper, G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, etc. Their names were erased from the directory. The coverup happened immediately.”
Rosenberger and her husband, Eric, came to New Hampshire in 1991. Eric had been working in China, where he was running nonprofits. Tiananmen Square happened, and the couple decided a change of place was in order. Eric accepted a job as head of development for St. Paul’s School in Concord, and she began work as a communications and political consultant for AARP. Her job was to make health care an issue in the 1992 first-in-the-nation presidential primary, which Rosenberger said was not terribly hard but great fun to see New Hampshire primary politics in action.
While Rosenberger has worked on myriad complex issues, her proudest advocacy work is personal. Her life changed in 2001 while serving as director of government relations with Devine Millimet & Branch.
Rosenberger and her husband were getting ready for a bike trip through Spain. They were training when Rosenberger fell off her bike crossing a speed bump near Concord Hospital and suffered a traumatic brain injury. She was in a coma for three days, and her recovery required re-learning nearly everything. She eased back into work after six months and didn’t drive for over a year.
Her first client upon returning to work was the New Hampshire Brain Injury Association. “I remember going for an interview and saying I had a brain injury. It was the first time I had to say that,” she said. “And, yes, I was wearing a helmet. If I wasn’t, I would be dead.”
Rosenberger and the Brain Injury Association won a tough battle in passing legislation that required kids to wear helmets while biking.
“It was really important to me knowing the helmet I was wearing saved my life and the law could benefit kids,” said the mom of three children and four grandchildren.
Colleague Jim Merrill, New Hampshire managing shareholder at Bernstein Shur, said Rosenberger is very deserving of BIA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
“She is a force of nature with boundless energy and brilliant insights, universally beloved by all who know her,” he said. “Teresa is an exceptionally accomplished professional. However, those who are fortunate enough to know Teresa know she is an even better human being.”
While honored to accept BIA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Rosenberger is not close to calling it a career.
“You can’t live in New Hampshire and not stay active from my point of view,” she said.
Staying active extends to her volunteerism. Rosenberger is a member of the Concord Planning Board and serves on the board of directors of the Granite State Children’s Alliance, Ledyard National Bank, New England Council, and New Hampshire Humanities. She served on the New Hampshire Public Broadcasting System board, the NH Preservation Alliance as well as other past boards too long to list.
She is proud to have graduated from the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce’s inaugural leadership program.
Mentoring is important, she said, adding she likes working with younger people. Following her experience in Leadership Greater Concord, she helped the chamber launch a student version and later became chair of the Concord chamber board.
With that, Rosenberger offers mentorship on critical issues in New Hampshire.
“We all need to re-learn to talk to each other and respect each other’s points of view,” she said. “I’m amazed at how we’re labeling and pigeon-holing people. We have real issues with mental health, homelessness, housing and so many more critical issues that we need to work together to solve. The fabric of a small rural state means rolling up our sleeves and working together.”
For tickets to BIA’s Annual Dinner and to see a list of event sponsors, visit bit.ly/BIAAnnualDinner2024.
Rick Fabrizio is BIA’s director of communications and public policy.
