It’s hard to imagine that fish could have anything to do with a budding baseball career. But if it hadn’t been for the Kelliher Fish Co., Branden Kelliher might not have had the opportunities that led to him being selected by the Oakland Athletics in the Major League Baseball draft last June.
Branden Kelliher is one of three children of Jenni and Dan Kelliher, second generation owners of the Kelliher Fish Co. in Lake Stevens.
The family business has allowed them the flexibility to work from home in order to spend more time with their children and the community sports teams they played on.
“We’re so lucky,” Dan Kelliher said from his office in a building behind his home. Adjacent to his office is a recreation room. The walls are covered with sports jerseys from the various teams the couple’s children have played on over the years — baseball, soccer, football and more.
Although the walls are completely filled, these jerseys represent only two-thirds of the family’s total collection.
Plaques from teams that had been sponsored by the company are displayed on the walls in Dan’s office and there are trophies dotted everywhere, both in rear building and in the main house where Jenni Kelliher maintains her office. There is no doubt what the passion is in this family.
“It’s been fun and we’ve met a lot of awesome people,” Dan Kelliher said. “In fact, a lot of our good friends we met through our kids’ sports.”
The couple has also made a lot of friends in the fish distribution industry. That’s also where they met. Both worked at the Kelliher Fish Company before they were married.
The family firm buys halibut, salmon, bottom fish and crab directly from fishermen or larger processors in Alaska and then resells to wholesale distributors in this region. Products can go directly from the airport to the distributor or to a distribution point. This is what allows the Kellihers the flexibility to maintain their company office at home.
“I sell to large and smaller distributors — those people who deliver to restaurants or retail stores that have a fleet of trucks,” Dan Kelliher explained.
His customers include Seattle vendors such as Pike Place Fish, Pure Food and other dealers in the Pike Place Market. He does not usually sell directly to restaurants though he does sell to Anthony’s Restaurant commissary that distributes fish to restaurants within that chain.
Instead, most of Kelliher’s customers are simply mom-and-pop-style distributors who serve the local community.
Loyalty and good business relationships are vital in the distribution industry. You have to have a good name with the fleet in Alaska and pay your accounts on time or you won’t get any future business, Dan Kelliher said.
That was something he learned from his father, company founder William J. Kelliher. The senior Kelliher worked in the fish industry from the time he was 16, spending many years with the historic New England Fish Company that moved its headquarters to Seattle in 1931.
In 1981, years after the New England Fish Company went bankrupt, William J. Kelliher started Kelliher Fish Co. from the basement of his house in Edmonds with just a $500 investment. In one year, the business was making money and incorporated.
“Dan’s dad always believed in the three ‘Fs’ – firm, fair and friendly,” Jenni Kelliher said. Those are the values they still try to adhere to in the company today.
In 2001, William Kelliher passed away and Dan and Jenni Kelliher officially took the reins. They decided to keep overheads low and work from their own home as Dan’s father had.
Over the following years the company office moved, along with the Kellihers, from a desk in an apartment to a house in Snohomish, before finally settling into the large family home in Lake Stevens where it currently occupies two private office spaces and a file room.
They were always able to make time for their family and to participate in the community activities they loved.
The company did well in the pre-recession years, experiencing million-dollar sales some months. They managed to make it through the recession in part, they believe, to the low overhead of doing business from home.
And they’re still doing well even though the industry as a whole isn’t as strong as it once was. New fishing quotas have made some parts of their business more difficult.
“Things are changing,” Dan Kelliher said. “I would like to say that one of the kids someday might like to be third generation but I’m just not sure if that’s going to happen because the little guys like myself get squeezed out.”
Of the three Kelliher children, Branden is the one who thinks he might like to join the family business when his baseball career is over, but he isn’t really sure yet.
Older son Daniel left sports behind him and joined the financial industry. Daughter Kahlia is still in high school, active in volleyball and softball and trying to decide where she would like to attend college.
All three children have helped out in the family business as needed and are aware that the industry is challenged and each have their own interests to pursue. That’s fine with their parents. That was the whole reason they wanted to work from home in the first place.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
