Holland’s Variety Drug
Holland’s Variety Drug Is All About the Patients | April 2020
By Maria Landry
Despite the uncertainty the novel coronavirus has caused this year, some things remain constant. Here in Skowhegan, Holland’s Variety Drug—which was started downtown back in 1939—continues to meet the health care needs of the community.
“It’s only about health care with us,” said owner Kevin Holland, who moved the business from Water Street to a new building at 12 High Street in 2014. “People talk about customers in most businesses, but it’s patient care with us. … It’s about the patient and what can we do to help them. We have great relationships with the local providers, and we’re able to get a lot of good results.”
To continue helping their patients while keeping the staff safe during this time, Holland said they are encouraging people to avoid the lobby and instead take advantage of other options.
“Some people do need to come in, but we’re encouraging curbside pickup or drive-thru or mailing,” he said. “People have been great about using the drive-thru or curbside service so we can keep our people healthy and keep them from getting exposed to some extent. I mean, it’s crazy—we’ve had lines down to Cumberland Farms in Skowhegan—but people understand. We have not really seen anything like this before.”
Holland, who is on the Board of Pharmacy for the state of Maine, also owns Mount Blue Drug in Farmington and Belfast Drug Company. The latter just opened two months ago and, like Skowhegan’s Variety Drug, has a drive-thru. In Farmington, Holland noted that with the cooperation and efficiency of the town, code enforcement, and a builder, he was able to get a drive-thru built in a week to help mitigate coronavirus risks.
“The hand-off is clean,” Holland said. “There’s really no contact between the employees and the patients.”
Generally Holland spends most of his time in Skowhegan, which is the busiest store. He added, “I’ve been spending a lot of time in Belfast since we opened until I get a local pharmacist. I won’t hire a pharmacist just to get someone in—it’s got to be the right person that’s committed to the community and to health care.”
There are more than 40 employees among the three stores, with most of them in Skowhegan.
“We do a vast majority of prescription refills in the [Skowhegan] area, but we have staff to handle it,” Holland noted. ”We have a lot of really, really good people that are dedicated. A lot have been with me a long time.”
Longevity is a key component of Variety Drug, which has been serving the Skowhegan community for more than 80 years. Holland’s father and uncle took over the business from his grandfather in the mid-1960s.
“My dad retired in 1983, and my uncle stayed on and had a couple of other partners come in,” Holland explained.
Holland had worked in Boston before coming back to Maine and working for the LaVerdiere’s chain in Portland. “When [LaVerdiere’s] sold to Rite-Aid, I wasn’t interested in the big corporate thing,” Holland said.
It was then, in 1995, that his uncle and his uncle’s partners approached him about joining Variety Drug.
“It happened that this opportunity came up at the right time,” Holland said. “It was an opportunity to grow a business. We needed to change some things—we needed to get more updated and more competitive. For the years when we were partners, it was a good learning experience for both sides.”
He bought out his partners in 2002 and has continued ever since as the sole owner, with the support of his wife, Susan.
“Without her support, there’s no way that we could have done what we have done,” he said.
He reiterated how important it is to him to have an independent drug store and not to have to answer to a corporate board or shareholders. For Holland, it isn’t about the bottom line—it’s about the patients.
“At the end of the day, the way I look at it is, if you can’t have at least half a dozen people walk out of there thinking, ‘What would I do without them?’ you aren’t doing your job. You should really be able to make an impression,” he said. “If I couldn’t do it this way, I wouldn’t do it at all.”
“It’s been great to be able to help people in the community and have them use us as a resource. It just keeps coming back to that.”
Learn more on Holland’s website and Facebook page.
