Robert Kaplan Bought: Black Pine Spas Robert Kaplan was looking to buy an existing business, but hot tubs were not on his radar. “When hot tubs first came up, my knee-jerk was [that I was] not interested in that,” Kaplan says. Kaplan worked his way up in the television industry starting as a page, then…
Sue Rogers of Oregon Hot Tub knows timing is everything. Six weeks after she bought the Portland-based hot tub retail company in April 2008, the worst financial calamity in modern history roared across the country and the world, gobbling up homes, life savings, careers and businesses. For Rogers, it was baptism by fire. The Seattle…