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Southeast Pet is honored and excited to share our congratulations with our founder, Greg Judge, who was awarded World Pet Association 's 2019 Lifetime Achievement award. He was given the award as the opening act for REO Speedwagon at Superzoo this year. Below is the excerpt from Pet Product News article on WPA's 2019 awards:
The WPA honored Greg Judge of Southeast Pet with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay Resort.
Judge has been “a great pet and pet industry supporter and advocate,” Mike Lasky, WPA board member said. "He was a founding member of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC), serving on the board for two terms, where he was instrumental in getting legislation passed to regulate the safe and proper transport of tropical fish, according to officials.
He also became a lobbyist in Georgia to advocate for companion animals and was an integral part of writing legislation protecting pets, Lasky added. In addition, Judge has served on the Pet Industry Distributors Association (PIDA) board, and a few years ago he was given an industry Icon award.
Judge got his start in the pet industry after managing three family fish stores in Long Beach, Calif. In 1965, Judge partnered with his uncle and co-founded Long Beach Fisheries in Georgia. In 1975, he opened Southeast Pet Supplies in Atlanta.
“One of the things that has impressed me most is when Greg decided to retire, instead of selling the company to a larger entity, Greg wanted to make sure his employees were taken care of, so he sold the company to his employees in 2015, and today Southeast Pet is 100 percent employee owned,” Lasky said. “And yet ‘retired,’ Greg still goes to work almost every day.
“It is a privilege to recognize someone who has done so much for pets and the pet industry, and the WPA is proud to honor Greg Judge as this year’s winner of the WPA Lifetime Achievement Award,” he added.
Greg & Holly Judge - center - with members of REO Speedwagon at Superzoo.