Change in career is a success for O’Connor

At 62, Vince O’Connor is finding success in his second career.

In August 1994, he and his wife Kerstin (pronounced SHUH-stin) opened Yankee Peddler West, 141 East Sixth St. in downtown Fremont.

But O’Connor said his love of antiques stems from his childhood.

“I’m originally from Connecticut,” he said. “I had an aunt and uncle who had an antique shop in Vermont. Even in Connecticut we would go to antique things. My mom loved it.”

But when it came time for him to choose a career he chose the medical field, even working at a local hospital when he started college. But his college was interrupted. After two years, he spent three years in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

“I spent some time in Okinawa (Japan),” he said. “I was a pharmacist in the Army. The last eight months in the service was spent at West Point Military Academy at the pharmacy.”

When O’Connor went back to finish his undergraduate degree he also went back to work at the hospital, he said. Then he decided to go to New York University to get a master’s degree in hospital administration.

After spending about three years at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, where he oversaw six departments, he and his wife moved to Fremont to work at Fremont Area Medical Center, where he worked for the next 21 years. Nearly 20 of those years were spent as the chief executive officer of the hospital.

Then, antiquing wasn’t high on his priority list.

“When we moved here in 1979, my actions in antiquing was mostly looking at shops and being a casual shopper,” he said.

That changed in 1994, when he came home from work one day angry about a particular issue.

“My daughter suggested that I get into antiquing. So, we started planning. We bought the main building here in 1994. We thought we’d work on it for three to five years, and then I would make a decision on health care,” he said.

Things happened faster than he anticipated, and they opened the store that August.

“We’re getting ready to start our 15th year.”

On a recent morning, a group of Fremont Middle School students came in on a scavenger hunt that was part of a reward package for all-A students. Three groups of students were visiting 11 downtown stores on the all-day hunt, said middle school guidance office employee Julie Kavan.

When O’Connor opened the store, he wanted to find something different, he said. He went to antique auctions and other shops and noticed that there were items not being sold at auctions or featured in stores.

“We saw that no one was really buying books, globes, cameras and art,” he said, adding that they started to develop those items into their inventory. “That’s kind of our niche now. We have more than 50,000 books on the shelves. Don’t ask me how many we have still in storage.

“I’ll always miss health care. It was part of my life for 38 years.”

But now, antiquing has taken over most of his daily activities -- outside trips to Portland, Ore., to visit children and grandchildren, trips to Connecticut to visit other family members and trips to Sweden to visit his wife’s family.

Even though there’s a niche to his store, he has another passion with it.

“I like to find something different and interesting,” he said. “A lot of this stuff is routine. When people come to me for private sales or when I go to auctions or other shops, I look for something’s that different. It’s the hunt. But I also want something that will sell.”