Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Freeport Tack Company - Lisa Judd owner



You would really enjoy getting to know this fascinating Freeport business owner as I did earlier today. Lisa hails from Massachusetts, yet was brought up in Saudi Arabia in the port city of Jeddah. Her father worked for an American company with a base of operations in Saudi Arabia. As a young girl she got to know Prince Sulton's daughter who was an avid horse back rider. Lisa and her Saudi friend had access to the Sulton's horses and rode horses over a vast area on his land. I mentioned to Lisa that I visited Jeddah 10 years ago when I was shipboard director for Class Afloat www.classafloat.com , a 188' tall ship that served as a floating high school for Canadian and American children. Lisa said she sailed on the Red Sea in small sailboats known as Lasers. The Red Sea is known to have a large white shark population and Lisa said it wasn't as much fun to snorkel after she saw "Jaw's" in a Saudi Arabia theatre. She grew up without TV in Saudi Arabia and it served her very well because she took advantage of all that a woman could enjoy in that country. As you may know, women can't participate fully in that country as they do here. For example, women can't drive cars. Lisa mentioned that there was a pool near her home where the Americans and other foreigners lived, however, the pool was segregated in such a way that there were hours for men to swim and hours for women to swim. She lamented the fact that she never got to swim with her father. Lisa and her family knew friends who lived in Tehran back in the 1970's and several of her family friends became hostages during the crisis in Iran during the Carter era. When Lisa reached the age of 15, she had to leave the country as the government felt that western teenage values were in stark contrast to Saudi values. The government paid for her to attend a fine school in New York; although Lisa laments that she didn't opt for a private school in Italy or elsewhere in Europe. Lisa speaks Arabic, French and of course English. She came to Maine to attend Bates College and is a trained Speech Therapist. In April of 2003 she started to work at Freeport Tack company. By December of that year, the owner decided to move on in her life and sold the business to Lisa. She has an active local clientele including a number of clients from Quebec and other parts of Canada. So, please stop in to see her fine store before Lisa moves next door where she will double her current retail space. For more information, www.freeporttack.com or call 865-1811.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Steve,

Thank you again for doing this. Just one correction, my young friend was not Prince Sultan's dgtr, she was the dgtr of Raytheon's Operations Director who worked closely w/Prince Sultan, the Minister of Defense. She was American and we rode his horses together there.
Lisa

Steve Drake said...

Lisa, thanks for clarifying the details of your American friend in Saudi Arabia. I appreciate corrective comments like Lisa's. As an active Internet blogger/journalist, I can now see how easy it is for professional journalists to get their facts mixed up.