Branching into family firm

It’s 4:30 in the morning and Jacob Paz has been awake for half an hour, trying to squeeze in a little homework. But the phone rings. A load of 250 Christmas trees is on the way.

So much for the 17-year-old high school senior’s plan to start his English essay on how two world wars fueled disillusionment in American literature. It’s time to get to work.

Since Oct. 26, Jacob has been running a pumpkin patch and then a Christmas tree lot complete with a small petting zoo in the Del Amo Fashion Center’s parking lot. He co-owns the business, called Cottone & Sons, with his grandfather, Tom Cottone, a real estate agent whose father started selling Christmas trees in Torrance in 1959.

As Jacob and Cottone said on separate occasions: “It’s in our blood.”

“It’s our Christmas,” Jacob said. “This is our big gift right here.”

Jacob’s new job has also been a gift to his great-grandfather Robert “Tony” Cottone. He died Sept. 26 at age 81, from pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease, family members said, shortly after asking Jacob to help run the lot this year.

“He wants to show Grandpa he can do it,” said Andrea Vicencio, Jacob’s mother. “It has been hard on all of us, but it made him more motivated to work the tree lot.”

As if Jacob needed any more motivation. His uncle Bob Cottone, who operates his own tree lot nearby on Pacific Coast Highway, recalled that Jacob, at age 8, “would always help out carrying the bottom of the trees.”

“I learned hard work from my great-grandfather,” Jacob said. “Nothing ever gets in my way. If someone puts up a roadblock, I’ll figure a way how to get around it.”

There have been several roadblocks.

He first needed approval from the Del Amo Fashion Center to open a lot. Mall executives were concerned about Jacob’s age, Tom Cottone said, and wouldn’t allow the lot until Cottone cosigned the paperwork.

“Tom was very helpful in bringing all the permits, approvals and everything that went into opening the tree lot,” said Jeff McLaughlin, the director of marketing at Del Amo Fashion Center.

Jacob and his grandfather didn’t get permission from the city of Torrance, however, until Oct. 26, leaving them with only five days to operate the pumpkin patch they normally open on Oct. 10. Nonetheless, they said, they made $32,000 in sales.

Then there were economic worries. But even with layoffs, the credit crunch and the mortgage crisis, sales haven’t been hurt, Cottone and Jacob said.

On Friday, Cottone said the lot had garnered between $32,000 and $40,000 from about 800 Christmas trees, with one last big weekend to go. Cottone said the lot, which has been in various locations over the years, typically brings in between $50,000 and $65,000 in sales.

Christmas tree sales are expected to be similar to last year’s totals, said Sam Minturn, executive director of the California Christmas Tree Assn. Nationwide, 48.7 million people bought Christmas trees in 2007, totaling $2.5 billion in retail market value, according to the National Christmas Tree Assn.

“Gas prices dropped and more people are staying home this year,” Minturn said. “Those would be pluses for tree sales.”

Beyond the business issues, Jacob also has to worry about homework. He’s worked full time while completing the fall semester of his senior year as a home-school student with Rancho Santa Rosa High School in Temecula. He’ll resume studying at Temecula Valley High School in January.

Peggy Dixon, a teacher at Rancho Santa Rosa who works with Jacob, said the weekly home schooling regimen consists of two packets of handouts, readings and essays that typically take 30 hours to complete. She’s supported Jacob’s effort to work full time as long as he averaged at least a C. Dixon said that so far he’d maintained a 2.5 grade-point average.

“Jacob has a really good, whole view of life,” Dixon said. “He’s a very balanced individual and knows his priorities. He has a wisdom that I don’t see in a lot of other high school students.”

After all, not many high school students live in a 35-foot Prowler recreational vehicle. Not many wake up between 4 and 5 a.m. to start homework before launching into a 14-hour-or-longer work shift, straightening trees and cleaning out the pens for pigs and goats, a pony and a calf. Not many sift through school papers while sitting on a haystack behind a cash register during down hours.

Jacob wouldn’t trade it for anything. Even if he often skips lunch and misses hobbies, such as dirt biking. Even if he has to finish English, history, algebra and Earth science homework in the early morning or when business is slow.

“Often I think he’s going to help me around the lot,” said Stephen Artiaga, who has worked at Cottone & Sons lots since 1998. “But he says, ‘I need to do this homework before I do anything.’ ”

The unpredictable also happens, such as when Jacob’s homework was cut short because he needed to pull a tarp over a fresh delivery of trees. He learned his approach of “taking advantage of every minute I’ve got” doesn’t always work when there are more tasks to complete than minutes will allow.

“Sometimes it gets pretty hard,” Jacob said. “We’re really busy, and we’ll often have spurts of 20 to 30 people come in.”

And more unanticipated phone calls. He received one on a recent Saturday at 4:30 a.m. and heard that he needed to drive to Los Angeles to pick up 100 Christmas trees.

That afternoon, he drove to L.A. again to pick up a promised load of 60 or 70 tabletop trees. Jacob returned with only three.

“I knew there was a reason you had a long face,” Cottone told him when he returned.

Jacob also had other reasons. A strong wind that day caused several trees to topple over, so Jacob had to tie the trees against fences and poles.

“There’s a lot of things that will come up,” Jacob said. “You think you’ve seen it all and heard it all. But something will always pop up that you haven’t done yet.”

“This is going to make a man out of him,” Cottone said. “Everything is hitting him all at one time. It’s nice we’re there to jump in and help him. If he was by himself, he may have closed up by now.”

Instead, Jacob is living out his great-grandfather’s dream. He cuts trees and hammers wooden sticks underneath them. He flocks trees, which involves spraying a mixture of paper and glue to make a tree appear to have snow on its branches. He brings in fresh trees every two days -- a practice family members acknowledged they didn’t do at other lots. He helps manage seven full-time workers and a handful of part-timers who show up on weekends.

Customers have noticed Jacob’s hard work.

“They keep it in the family,” said Theresa Broumfield, a customer from Torrance. “That’s a good thing. Out of all [the lots], they make you feel very welcome.”

That’s what Jacob thinks his great-grandfather would’ve hoped for, even if it takes waking up at 4 a.m. to finish his homework.

“Ever since I was little,” Jacob said, “my great-grandfather taught me to get up because the early bird catches the worm.”

Or in his case, a Christmas tree.

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