Tag Archives: rakes for clams
Decades ago, North Kingstown’s Bob Bercaw chose quahogs over cubicles, and he never looked back
Bob Bercaw’s livelihood began with a $20 rowboat that his mother gave him when he was just 10. His father died when Bercaw was 6, and they didn’t have much money. Spending $20 was a big deal for the Saunderstown family. The little boy took his rowboat on the Narrow River and caught blue crabs and white perch, which he sold around the neighborhood. In two weeks, he paid his mother back — and found his calling. Before she died of breast cancer a decade later, Ruth Bercaw gave her son advice: “Go to college, but if afterward, you want to take a job as a garbage collector, then why not?” After Bob Bercaw earned a business degree from Johnson & Wales University, his uncle offered to get him into IBM in New York City. Bercaw blew it off. He’d rather be on the water. By 1979, he had a wood boat and was raking for quahogs. Read the story here 20:58
