For the eighth year in a row, Premier Subaru and Premier Pre-Owned in Branford are proud to be official drop off points for the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program. The 61 year mission of the Toys for Tots program is to collect new, unwrapped toys each holiday season and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community. The primary goal of Toys for Tots is to deliver, through a shiny new toy at Christmas, a message of hope to needy youngsters that will motivate them to grow into responsible, productive, patriotic citizens and community leaders. Last year, approximately 36,000 children in the Greater New Haven and all surrounding areas received toys through Toys For Tots.

Bob Alvine, President of Premier Subaru and Premier Pre-Owned commented that "We believe that this program allows us an opportunity to play an active role in the development of our nation's most valuable natural resource - our children and to unite all members of the local community. The gift of a shiny new toy - something many children take for granted - means to a needy child that someone cares, that he/she hasn't been forgotten, that Christmas hasn't passed him or her by. In addition, due to the current economic environment, we are starting this program off early to ensure that we are able to collect a record number of toys."

As an added benefit, customers who contribute a new, unwrapped toy to the Toys for Tots program will receive an additional $100.00 off their new or used vehicle purchase at either Premier Subaru or Premier Pre-Owned in Branford. Collections under this program end on December 19, 2008. Premier Subaru is located at 150 North Main Street in Branford. Premier Pre-Owned is located at 165 North Main Street in Branford. Community members requiring additional information are encouraged to call 203-481-0687

Thanks to All Who Attended Our Last New Owner’s Clinic!

We appreciate the 30 clients who came in on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 to participate in our last NEW OWNER’S CLINIC. During this clinic, Dennis Cullen, Service Director, provided valuable information on Subaru maintenance requirements, as well as, ever important fuel economy. Door prizes and food were provided for all. Special congratulations to Ms. Kingsley (new owner of a 2008 Impreza), who won a Genuine Subaru Cargo Organizer and Mr. Bandici (new owner of a 2009 Forester) who won a full vehicle detail.

THANK YOU TO ALL OF THE BLOOD DONORS DURING OUR 4TH BLOOD DRIVE FOR THE AMERICAN RED CROSS!

I would like to thank all of the donors who came out on a rainy and snowy February 27th day to give blood during our Blood Drive for the American Red Cross. I would like to also thank Jamie Russo in our Service Department for the hard work that she puts into these drives, all to ensure their complete success. Thank you also to Salvatore's By The Greem, Jersey Mike's of Branford and Subway for their donations of needed food for the donors. Premier Subaru has sponsored four blood drives in the past two years and these organizations have been always more than willing to contribute delicious treats for the blood donors. If you didn't get a chance to donate this time, please go to www.gifealife.org for the next drive location and date.

NEW OWNER’S CLINIC HELD ON FEBRUARY 26, 2008!

We would like to thanks the 20 new owner’s who attended our 32nd consecutive NEW OWNER’S CLINIC! These clinics, which are run by Dennis Cullen, our Service Director, are designed to introduce our new owner’s to the service and maintenance needs of their vehicles, In addition, our ASE and Subaru Certified Technicians show them like model vehicles on the lift and where to inspect to ensure vehicle safety and reliability. On top of it all, guests are treated to door prizes and a grand prize. We truly appreciate our customer’s taking time from their busy schedule to visit with us!

Thank You For Your Help With This Year’s TOYS FOR TOTS Toy Drive!

Bob Alvine, President of Premier Subaru and Jeffrey Irzyk, Certified Subaru Sales Representative, stand next to some of the toys collected during the 2007 Toys For Tot’s Toy Drive held at Premier Subaru. This year marked the 8th consecutive year of participation by Premier Subaru and their employees. In addition, Premier customers, Branford residents and the entire staff of the Sovereign Bank office in Branford and New Haven participated. We thank all of those who helped us this year.

PREMIER SUBARU WINS THE SUBARU OF AMERICA CIRCLE OF EXCELLENCE AWARD FOR SERVICE AND PARTS!

Subaru of America has announced that Premier Subaru has won the Circle of Excellence Award for Service and Parts Excellence for 2006. In winning this award, Premier Subaru of Branford, CT., joins a select group of winning dealers nationwide and proves its excellence in Service and Parts Client Satisfaction, Technical Training and other key performance measures. In this photo, Robert J. Alvine (right) congratulates Dennis Cullen, Service Director and Warren Smith, Parts Director (middle) on the receipt of this prestigious award.

Premier Subaru Is Pleased To Sponsor The Shoreline Harvest Dinner Dance on November 4, 2006 benefiting the Branford Chamber of Commerce.

Involved Alumnus Of The Month for May 2006
Robert Alvine
Honorary Degree, 2000
Chairman of the UNH Board of Governors


Eight years ago Robert Alvine lay trapped in a “body cage,” the victim of an erratically driven automobile that struck him directly in the solar plexus as he walked through a parking lot in 1996. For more than six months, he would be confined to his bed suffering the immobilizing impact of a broken back and multiple other injuries. He faced still another six months of rigorous physical therapy.

Today, the highly successful, international business executive considers himself fortunate, because when he was raced to the hospital for emergency care he was nearly dead. With a powerful will, optimistic vision and quality medical care, he began to recover.

Life held promise— and new challenges— for him again. But, he would change the direction of his life by applying his deep experience in management to select non-profit organizations in need. The rewards of global involvement in business as an industrialist, entrepreneur and private investor would soon expand to include the challenges and pleasures that derive from greater involvement in the not-for-profit sector and, most particularly, from his role as chairman of the University of New Haven’s (UNH) Board of Governors.

Ironically, it was his confinement that freed the successful entrepreneur, international executive and financier to consider and reevaluate his life and future. Even as he made every effort to reenter his dynamic business world, albeit via a bedside telephone, he said, “I began to understand that I needed to face the new realities of physical limitations resulting from the accident and I came to grips with my need to change a pace that had absorbed me.” He would soon turn his attention to his community in his home region of Greater New Haven, with UNH being the foremost beneficiary.

Founded on the Yale campus in 1920 as New Haven College with the support of major area businesses seeking higher education for returning World War I veterans they employed, the University of New Haven has grown in breadth and national and international recognition, particularly as a center for real-life learning that prepares students for success “on campus, in their careers and in life.” Almost 5,000 enrolled students represent more than 25 states and 70 countries. It is an institution that Alvine learned about from his son and daughter, both of whom received degrees.

“I had always supported organizations and institutions whose purpose it was to help others in various ways. I was religious about donating; but began to feel that my support was limited compared to the need and it was time to make a real difference. I wanted to do more.” After the accident, instead of rejecting requests to become involved in regional and national not-for-profits, he began to carefully and selectively say yes, and stand up to the plate with renewed commitment. Early on, he focused his attention on the arts and education, accepting membership on a Harvard advisory board and a special financial and fundraising council for Rutgers University, while joining the boards of the Long Wharf Theater and the National Theater of the Deaf. He became a key board leader of the internationally renowned scientific laboratory, The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine; the Wildlife Conservation Society of New York; and the Naval War College and its foundation—making a difference in all efforts with his rich business expertise.

A graduate of Rutgers University with a BA in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and already known as a “hot shot executive,” at Celanese, Inc., Alvine had been chosen by Celanese for advanced study at the Harvard Business School for senior management development, graduating in 1972. Woodbridge-based for some 27 of his 44-year business career, the CEO of more than a half-dozen global corporations and a dozen major subsidiaries, industrialist and unique private equity investor, Alvine has “seen it all” in the corporate world, as well as the entrepreneurial investment world. He has built companies from the bottom up, turned others around and has overseen the transformation of already successful firms into more dynamically productive and growing enterprises. He has been responsible for billions of dollars in corporate assets; put his personal touch on 65 acquisitions, three mergers, 70 divestments, and several initial and secondary public offerings. He has served on the Boards of directors of more than 25 companies. He nurtured dozens of ideas into multimillion dollar entities, evaluated more than 1000 companies and ventures with the trained eye of a uniquely skilled leader who knows what can make a company succeed or fail.

From Celanese, where Alvine’s leadership brought him worldwide recognition as the “grandfather of the plastic bottle,” he was aggressively recruited to become a top executive with Uniroyal, Inc., a diverse and multinational $3.5 billion company that was a supplier to him at Celanese. During his ten years with Uniroyal, in addition to his challenging positions as chief executive and president, he was a leading member of the Corporate Management Committee and chairman of many subsidiary boards of directors. One of his crowning achievements at Uniroyal came in 1985, when he was a leading team member for America’s largest corporate management leveraged buyout to that date, the unprecedented, multi-billion-dollar management leveraged purchase of Uniroyal.

After a dynamic and frenzied period of great change and challenge that resulted in the monetization of this breakthrough transaction, he turned away numerous offers to lead other giants in the corporate world, choosing instead to leverage his entrepreneurial skills and establish his own firms in 1987. Alvine focused on business private equity investments, as a lead or participating investor, member of the board of directors and advisor to senior management. Clearly, Alvine had risen to the highest levels in many businesses and several industries and now it was time to again, he said, to “diversify [his] experience, reallocate my time commitments and help the non-profit world more directly.”

Alvine’s timing for a change in the direction and emphasis on helping others was savvy because, while the nation’s economy was showing signs of recovery, not-for-profits, including higher education, had suffered dramatically from the economy of the 90s. “Colleges and universities— which had become intensely competitive— needed to address dramatic market shifts, to revitalize and meet serious financial and strategic challenges effectively,” said Alvine.

Among the calls for assistance to which he responded from not-for-profits was one from the University of New Haven. UNH, in 1997, needed a leader to chair the plan for the start-up of the now internationally acclaimed Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science. He became the first and only chairman of the Institute while also accepting an invitation from the University Board of Governors to become a member.

His success in helping to bring the Institute to fruition caught the attention of a grateful University and Alvine was asked by the president and the board to take on an even greater challenge in 1999—a task that would lead to transformation of the University itself. Alvine became chair of the Commission on the Future of the University of New Haven and the driving force of the most comprehensive strategy and operations review of University in its history.

In less than a year, with a diversified team of more than 100 faculty, administrators, alumni, students and friends of the university, and having gained contributions from several consultants (whom he personally selected), Alvine’s Commission delivered a far-reaching, ten-year strategic and operating plan winning unanimous adoption, first by the faculty and then the Board of Governors in May 2000.

Alvine’s leadership resulted in more than an ordinary strategic plan. Instead, it reached into the identity of the institution, embodied operational direction, and called for the strengthening of management and accountability. An institution whose purpose was rooted in the academic needs of returning veterans from World Wars I and II had, he believed, “lost direction, cohesion and driving thrust. It was not integrating all of the linkages to the needs of existing and future students. It was not reflecting its excellence in the ever-intensifying higher education market and, therefore, it was losing relevance.“

To regain direction and continuously improve the University would be “equivalent,” he said, “to warding off future failure.” For sustainability, UNH would need to aggressively apply the long-term strategy, vigorously adhere to new operational direction and responsibly attend to financial challenges, including essential action on short-term and 10-year funding requirements. The university’s mission was reestablished as the “development of career-ready and cultivated graduates, well prepared for meaningful roles and the pursuit of lifelong learning in a global economy and society, to create success among its students, alumni and other constituents.”

John Kuhnle, a senior executive at Korn Ferry, the international consulting and executive recruiting firm, said, “Bob engineered the most far-reaching, detailed and comprehensive institutional turnaround that I’ve seen any board undertake in more than 30 years in higher education.” Immediately following approval of the strategic plan, there was an equally unanimous board request for Alvine to take the Board Chairmanship to ensure the plan’s success.

Under a succession plan crafted by Alvine and his board, Larry DeNardis, the UNH president of 13 years, transitioned into an emeritus role on 2004 and was succeeded by Dr. Steven Kaplan, formerly chancellor of the University of Virginia at Wise. “Bob’s thorough and meticulous approach to the UNH presidential search represented the deepest involvement in a search that I have experienced,” said Kuhnle of Korn Ferry. “His close attention to detail and unrelenting insistence on excellence is being justified by Dr. Kaplan’s endorsement and support by students, faculty and trustees.”

While there is considerably more to be done to fulfill the 10-year plan, UNH can no longer be seen as threatened and has been repositioned on a strengthened platform for the success that the UNH board chairman envisioned in his Commission’s strategy.

In July 2004, Alvine began his final two-year term as chairman with the goal of assisting the University’s new president and his leadership team face the remaining unresolved challenges in the Commission strategy and new priorities and initiatives identified by President Kaplan in order to accelerate the university’s momentum and achieve a strong start.

Bob Alvine, the engineer and entrepreneur, marketer and business leader, and keen investor has led the University of New Haven to a new tomorrow. How did he do it?

“By combining business experience in motivating people and strong strategic sensibilities with a commitment to finding, positioning and motivating the right people for effective execution and delivery,” Alvine said. “I was fortunate to be supported by an active, committed and involved board, especially members of the Executive Committee. They stepped up to face an enormous task, which was beyond the mere oversight undertaken by most boards of directors or trustees. The board believed in the plan and was determined to build a rock solid foundation. Now with President Steve Kaplan continuing to pursue the plan and lead the University into a fulfilling future, we can shift gears from a crisis mode to normal, fiduciary oversight and transformation activities”

As Alvine sees the process of leading transformation, whether in for-profit or not-for-profit organizations, “more and more accountability for the institution’s fiscal, strategic and human resources leadership is in the board’s script. So, when an organization is highly challenged and sustainability is in question, the board must step up, take on the challenges and get things on a sound footing.” Likewise, it is essential that the board assure that the right CEO, the right management team and the right governance policies are in place. Alvine says, “This enables the board to assume another vital role of providing sound oversight and ambassadorship to the organization’s constituents. The ultimate measure of success will be whether a board has left a meaningful legacy for the benefit of others well into the future.”

What does it take to lead a process of the type Alvine undertook as Chairman of the Board of Governors at UNH? “One must be willing to sacrifice a major amount of their time and lifestyle, be eager for success, patient about the process, and be able to keep a smile in his heart and to share their glow of hope and joy with others.

With a firm university strategy in pursuit, and with a new president and management team in place to pursue it, perhaps, now, Alvine will have more time for his number one priority in life— his family, friends and significant other, “helping them, sharing with them all that is possible about life.”

Congratulations to Bob, UNH’s Real-Life Leader of the month!

PREMIER SUBARU SUPPORTS THE SECOND ANNUAL NEW HAVEN GAY AND LESBIAN COMMUNITY CENTER'S "DOROTHY AWARDS".

Attending the awards evening are (in order) Barbara Mullen, Senior Sales Consultant, Robert J. Alvine, President and General Manager and Brian DuBosar, General Sales Manager. The awards, which were held on February 26, 2005, honor those people who have made a difference in the community.