From Bank V.P. to Stamp Shop Owner

How do bank vice presidents relax at home after a trying day in the office?

Well, for Judy Ritchie, vice president for depositor services at People’s Bank in Bridgeport, it often meant creating designs of vibrant colors on paper in her Fairfield home.

“I’d come home on many nights and do my paper crafts,” she recalls, calling it a form of stress management.

After 19 years in banking, Ritchie decided that her avocation would become her new vocation. She accepted a voluntary buy-out from People’s and, with her daughter, Jamie Kilmartin, and two friends, Kate Schmidt and Ginny Carter, opened the in Westport.

Nearly two decades later, the store -- located at 1015 Old Post Road East, diagonally behind Carvel -- continues to do reasonably well in a challenging economic environment.

Its 1,400 square feet are filled with about 10,000 stamps, plus all the items one might need to pursue this hobby: Papers, inks, embossing supplies, ribbons, marbleized paper, stamp sets. Papermaking kits and paper-casting supplies are among the many craft items on hand. 

“We provide everything people need for scrap booking, preserving family trips, the children,” Ritchie says. “We have a huge selection of ribbons, probably the largest selection in Fairfield County.”

The shop’s clientele, about 95 percent female, is drawn from Fairfield County, metropolitan New York, and beyond.

“We get people from all over,” she points out. “One woman who lives in Aruba comes here when she’s visiting the country. We have another customer in Providence, others from upstate Connecticut.”

To keep customers informed, Ritchie and Kilmartin (Carter and Schmidt left the business many years ago) e-mail a newsletter to 1,000 people usually twice a week. The shop also has a website, and it’s on Facebook.

Located in a community with a rich art history, the Great American Stamp Store offers classes on the premises “at least twice a week.” Both Ritchie and her daughter serve as instructors, but sometimes outside experts are called upon to teach.

“I had a class last Saturday with nine people. It was about using Copic markers,” Ritchie says, adding, “One woman puts her dog in a doggy daycare to come to class.”

Mother and daughter also found the time to produce three hard-cover books for the serious craft hobbyist. Published within a five-year period, the titles are "Great Rubber Stamping," "Great Paper Crafts" and, the most recent, "Glorious Rubber Stamping."

“People will call us from all over the country,” Ritchie explains. “’I’m looking at page 29 (of such-and-such book). Do you still have that stamp?’”

Judy Ritchie (formerly Jacobson), was raised in a small Minnesota town, Cannon Falls, located about 25 miles south of Minneapolis. She’s the oldest of eight children. Judy and another Minnesotan, Wayne Ritchie, were married 52 years ago, and they’ve called Fairfield home since 1972.

At People’s, she was hired as a clerk in the real estate department by Jim Biggs, then the bank’s human resource officer, who would briefly become People’s president. “Probably the best boss I ever had, he and (the late president) Dr. (Lloyd) Pierce,” Judy says.

She also rose through the ranks to become a vice president, but eventually found the day-to-day work of a banker tedious. So, Ritchie began to dabble in crafts in the evening, eventually forming a small home-based business, Whimsy, with her daughter. They would exhibit their creative work at craft fairs in Fairfield and Westport. She also got some tips from one of her siblings, Ann Zazzi, who had opened a retail stamp store (she now operates three) in Seattle, Wash.  

After bidding banking adieu, Judy Ritchie and her partners launched the Great American Stamp Store in February of 1992. It is now just one of three stamp stores in Connecticut, sharing that distinction with shops in Simsbury and Westbrook.

Great American Stamp Store is located at 1015 Old Post Road East, Westport. Phone number: (203) 221-1229. It is open seven days a week: 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Monday through Friday, with evening hours until 8 on Thursday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday, and noon-5 p.m., Sunday.