A Ninth-Degree Black Belt Enters the Tire Business

Nugent started learning karate at eight years old, and in high school, had a part-time job teaching at a studio in Newton. After graduating from Newton Catholic High School in 1983, he decided to dedicate himself to teaching – and competing nationally. He holds four world titles, and in 1999, won the gold medal in karate at the Arnold Classic, an annual fitness competition started by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Nugent opened his first karate school in 1994 in Burlington, subletting space in a gym. He’d saved enough money to run the school for a few months, but he didn’t attract students quickly enough.

“I noticed that the gym had a cleaning company that came in at night, around 11 o’clock,” Nugent says. “I said, ‘What if you handed that off to me?’” To reduce the rent, after teaching his evening classes, he swept floors, scrubbed showers, and cleaned toilets. And he started plastering local restaurants and laundromats with flyers, and offering his few students $25 if they referred someone else to the school. "I was determined not to let that thing go," he says.

“Finally, word-of-mouth started to take off, and I was paying the rent and also putting some money in my pocket,” he says. In 1999, he opened a second school in Wellesley. This time, he started marketing the school well before it opened, and also had saved up a much bigger war chest to survive the shaky early months.

(In the photo is Nugent with a group of Daisy Troopers who earned their "Courageous and Strong" merit badge with him...)