Business blooms in Volunteer Building
Mary Gentry got the desire to run her own business honestly — she was born with it.
Her father, Jim Gentry, owns Gentry Chevrolet Pontiac Buick in Marion County. That business passed to him from her grandfather, Abb Hembree Gentry. The family just last month bought a dealership in Dunlap, Tenn., that will be run by her brother, Tom Thomas.
So when Ms. Gentry, 34, opened her flower and gift shop, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, in the Volunteer Building in downtown Chattanooga last month, she already had a good foundation.
“My father focuses on customer service being paramount in his professional world, and I feel like I have adopted some of those skills as well from him,” she said.
From her mother, Wanda, Ms. Gentry said she inherited a love of design.
