Tom Scott grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a kid who was always up to something, according his mother, Jane Scott. “When Tom was 12, he ordered a motor from a Sears catalog and built a moped out of his bike. I didn’t know he was tooling around on this moped until he was stopped by the police on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC,” she recalls. Besides a wonderfully mischievous streak, Tom also demonstrated a strong work ethic. “I noticed at a young age, he could make things happen," Jane says. In 1976, during the gas crisis, Tom, nine years old, demonstrated his entrepreneurial spirit when he and a friend started a service selling juice, coffee, muffins, and newspapers to the drivers waiting in lines for the gas pumps.

But Tom’s success did not come effortlessly. While attending Brown University, he became intimidated by the number of outstanding students in his class. Tom became increasingly nervous when speaking in public and had frequent panic attacks. “I decided I had no alternative but to confront my fears head-on,” Tom says, “I left Brown for NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School), an outdoor leadership course which changed my life.”

Tom returned to Brown and started Allserve the following summer on Cape Cod. Of the early days, Jane says, “Allserve started in 1987 servicing boats in the harbor off Nantucket. They would do anything. They would clean solid waste, they’d do your laundry, they would baby-sit, they’d get lobsters at 5pm if that’s what you needed. The newspaper, ice you name it. Those guys would do it.” After graduating from Brown, Tom returned to the Cape to continue Allserve, and with his college roommate Tom First, the duo launched a juice business, Nantucket Nectars. In 2002, Cadbury Schweppes PLC acquired Nantucket Nectars for an undisclosed sum.(Industry analysts suggest the acquisition price was approximately $100 million).

“I never questioned that he would be a success,” states Jane, “He’s always had this integrity and he’s always shared with his siblings, and he shares his life with people.” Jane remembers a special Halloween when Tom was five and his older brother, Billy, was six. “Billy had gotten into trouble and had to stay home. Tommy came back with this big bag of candy. He poured it out onto the living room rug and said to Billy, ‘you get half’.”

Though Tom Scott has grown into a successful entrepreneur and new parent, along with his wife Emily Scott (who is the co-founder of J. Crew), he candidly points out, “My mother is still my mother. She tells me that I have to sleep more, that I shouldn’t fly, that I shouldn’t be traveling so much. But I love my mother for always being fair, for doing the right thing, and for creating an environment where anything is possible.”

For more about Tom Scott, please log onto www.nantucketnectars.com.