By Christopher Keating
blogs.courant.com
Longtime business executive Oz Griebel is fighting back over remarks made by Republican gubernatorial front runner Tom Foley about his business experience.
In an interview with The Hartford Courant, Foley questioned the experience of three candidates for governor who have touted their financial backgrounds - Griebel, Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele of North Stamford, and Greenwich cable television entrepreneur Ned Lamont.
Stating that Griebel has overseen three or four fulltime employees in recent years as CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance, Foley said that accomplishment is similar to being the CEO of a dry cleaning business.
"Tom's remarks comparing my management experience to running a dry cleaning business are both elitist and insulting to the hard-working operators of the 1,279 dry cleaning businesses across Connecticut,'' Griebel said in a statement. "Small business owners, including dry cleaners, are key economic drivers for both employment and revenue.''
He added, "To lead Connecticut out of our fiscal crisis, our state needs a proven leader who is in touch with key issues facing every day people, including dry cleaners. I believe I am uniquely qualified over my Republican and Democrat opponents to do just that.''
Griebel headed out to Avon to meet with the local dry cleaner, Tom Ma, and released a web video that lasts about 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Ma, a friend of Griebel's, is supporting his candidacy.
In his interview with The Courant, Foley noted that he once owned businesses that employed a combined total of 6,000 employees. Today, he owns one company - an aviation services business. He said that Fedele and Lamont both run operations, by comparison, that are "pretty small businesses.''
Fedele says he has about 100 employees, while Lamont says he has about 40 employees at the moment - a number that has shifted through the years and does not include the hundreds of contractors who have been hired over the past 25 years to build the cable television systems on college campuses that Lamont's company oversees. For example, Lamont said he did not bring large numbers of Connecticut employees out to Berkeley, California when he was working on wiring the campus there. Instead, local contractors were hired.
Griebel's web ad is entitled, "Taking Ambassador Foley to the cleaners.''
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