The History of Burns Power Tools in Fall River and What They Saw There

America was a very different place in 1934 when John J. Burns opened his saw shop in Fall River, Massachusetts. Back then, the storefront was known then as Burns Saw and Machinery Company. It was a time of great uncertainty but Burns knew that the nation would always need builders and those builders would always need a central location to find the sharpest, most powerful tools for their jobs.

Nearby, Boston was booming with building contracts, families spent $11 per week on food and the average price of a house was around $6,000. In the entertainment world, a curly-headed five-year-old named Shirley Temple brightened the gloom with her rendition of "The Good Ship Lollipop." On the news front, the talk around kitchen tables centered on the repeal of Prohibition and the violent ends of gangsters like John Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde.

Locally, Fall River had grown to be a thriving hub of textile mills but that was on the cusp of changing dramatically. In the bigger picture, the nation was just beginning to emerge from the Great Depression, there was a great deal of concern about immigration around the world and demand in the textile industry was dying out. In some ways, America wasn't all that different after all.

Over the eight decades that followed, Burns Power Tools carefully enlarged their operations and service offerings following a strategy that the business world is just rediscovering now: management consultants call it "customer-centricity." The original name for this concept was simply "loyalty." Being loyal to customers meant that the Burns family kindled an unyielding dedication to service and support. If it broke, Burns fixed it. Burns made advanced pickup and delivery options available for their busy customers from the very beginning. If the customer needed training or advice on how to better use their tools, they called Burns.

The result was no surprise. Burns saw customer loyalty grow along with them in the form of countless long-lasting mutual friendships in the woodworking and contracting community. As large discount tools warehouses opened up everywhere, Burns stayed the course and kept providing lasting value to contractors and woodworkers across industries. They sought new ways to give back to the community, such as operating a flexible wood shop maintenance program especially for high schools across Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Highly skilled power tool experts from Burns worked alongside school staff and faculty to maintain the shop equipment and inspire young builders to dream bigger.

They moved to their current location on Mariano S. Bishop Boulevard in 1984 and have no plans to leave Fall River where it all began, no matter how much they grow in the years to come. By their Diamond (75th) Anniversary in 2009, Burns Power Tools proudly brought together four generations of the Burns family in managing the business. J. Marshall Burns, who inherited the business from his father, was still alive then and would appear occasionally to lend a hand behind the counter.

That was also the year that Marshall's son John M. "Spike" Burns was getting ready to retire, leaving the growing company to his brother Jeffrey and the next generation, represented by Zachary Burns. At the time, Spike Burns laid out why he felt so confident about letting go of the reins, despite all of the turbulence in the construction industry that year. He said, "The company is in excellent shape and Zach has everything under control. With that strong leadership, we will continue to gain in the marketplace."

When Zachary Burns took over as President of the firm, he brought Burns Power Tools online and introduced 21st-century technology to the traditional business. He also applied his experience with tighter targeting of investments and integrated financial controls. This innovative expansion strategy that carried them into the world of digital technology brought with it an expansion of their service area as well. The company evolved from a local in the New England region to a national provider of industrial-grade tools and services.

Tying together the company's past and future, Zachary Burns explained, "My great-grandfather, J.J. Burns, founded this company on his expertise in blade sharpening. He taught my grandfather the trade and created the SuperSharp™ premium blade service that continues to lead the industry today. With the addition of a robust retail machinery division, we knew it was time to magnify our presence and bring Burns' services to a larger market."

Now, more than 80 years after opening their doors of their small town saw shop, Burns Power Tools has become one of the World's Best Tool Stores according to Tools of the Trade magazine. One of the ways that Burns has adapted to the new world is expanding their training by putting videos on their YouTube channel and Facebook page. Now woodworkers all over the planet, both professional and amateur, can get the inside story on working with the most advanced tools on the market today. Burns Power Tools is bringing its specialization in industrial power tools, full-service sharpening and tool training to a new generation of power users in every corner of the country.