Peggy Burns

Peggy Burns gets comfortable

The Queen Bee of the Boston furniture world discusses how her UMass Amherst education gave her the tools to run her own business.

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UMass Video Profile Series Transcript :Peggy Burns

Look at this. Is this awesome or what? Just come in here. Don't you love this? Just think of all those UMass football games and basketball games you can watch from this. And as a matter of fact, come in and mention you're a UMass alumni, and we'll see what kind of special deal we can give you here at Circle Furniture. My name is Peggy Burns. And I graduated from UMass in 1976. Well, I believe I had a great education at UMass. And it's helped me in all aspects of my life. From my communications class, I learned how to communicate in business clearly, succinctly. I think I get my point across. Now who wouldn't want a chair like this? Put your feet—they got to be right there at the end like that. Is this not comfortable, or what? Stressless. This is awesome. And they're one of our favorite vendors. In fact, you have to be a favorite vendor, or you can't be here. We were looking for maybe five years for a place that we might be able to have in Boston. And coincidentally, a colleague from UMass found us the place. We're a leader in green and sustainable furniture. As a matter of fact, Circle Furniture's on the board of the founding members of the Sustainable Furnishings Council and just really trying to save our planet and keep the world for our future children and grandchildren. And here's my grandchild. Yup. He's coming in May. What's going to be his position? He starts at delivery. I was going to say dusting. That's where I started. Dusting. Oh, yeah, Erica started at dusting when she was, like, three. Mattress tester. Mattress tester. Some of my favorite memories, of course, of UMass is I met my husband there. Well, we lived in the same apartment complex off campus.

And my car was broken, which happened frequently. So I was hitchhiking to work. And Peggy had a car that broke frequently as well. Yes. But that particular day, hers was working and mine wasn't. When you own a small business, you do everything.

And after a while, what are you going to have on your business—I just decided to name myself the Queen. If you ask people that I do business with, they will always say, they get it. Music, please. I'm Peggy Burns, the Queen Bee of Circle Furniture. I stand for local business in my community. And I stand for UMass. Am I good dancer? You're a really amazing dancer. Yeah. No, they try to make fun of me. They say I look like Elaine on Seinfeld, but I don't care.

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