New commissioner leaves business behind for politics
JEFFERSON – Back in high school, Archie Trader became curious about politics. During the 1960 presidential election season, Trader and his classmates watched the campaign of successful running mates John F. Kennedy Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson and held their own mock convention.
“I got interested in politics at that time,” said Trader, the former owner of Trader’s Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning in Jefferson. “It’s just sort of been in the background up until I decided that if I was ever going to do it, I better do it now.”
With his 65th birthday around the corner on Dec. 7, and the offices of Greene County commissioner up for election, Trader decided that 2007 was the perfect time to run for political office.
He and his wife, Jeanette, put their store, which they had owned for 23 years, up for sale to focus on his political campaign, Partners for Progress, which he jointly ran with Mark Snyder of Waynesburg.
Following the Nov. 6 county municipal elections, Trader won a seat on the board of commissioners as the minority Republican commissioner, and he will be officially sworn in at 10 a.m. Monday.
“After a long campaign, it’s a real joy to know that you’ve won because a campaign is very long,” he said. “It’s almost nine months. I wore out two pairs of shoes going door to door.”
The final weeks of 2007 also brought another change, as Trader and his wife finally sold their store to their son, Dale, and his wife, Sophie, on Dec. 20.
As he prepares to move into his new office in Waynesburg, Trader and his wife, who live in Ruff Creek, are still lending a hand at their old business.
“We’re just helping them wherever they need help,” he said of Dale and Sophie. “We’re just trying to make suggestions now and running errands for them. I’ve gone to Washington and picked up parts, waited on customers, went to the bank and got the mail.”
“It’s a little hard,” he said with a laugh of letting go of his former business.
Before venturing into business ownership, Trader, who was born in Wisconsin, worked as a manager for Weyerhaeuser Company, an international forest products company.
“Whenever any of the Weyerhaeuser branches had financial problems, I always went in as the head person to solve their problems and get them back on a profitable standpoint,” he said. “I traveled all over the United States doing that.”
He started working for Weyerhaeuser in 1961, the same year he married Jeanette.
The couple had three children, Dale, Lori and Debbie, and the family moved to Greene County in 1976.
A few years later, Trader turned down a request from Weyerhaeuser to move to Arkansas.
“I didn’t want to move to Arkansas because our children were in college and in high school here, so we decided to go into business for ourselves,” he said.
The plumbing, heating and air conditioning store in Jefferson was “available at the time,” Trader said, noting that the store had two workers when he first owned it and now has 12 employees.
He said his decades of business experience could only help him as a county commissioner.