A F Alber built 4 Eastern Mountain Sports retail store locations — a client relationship that started not with a referral, but with a phone call from one outdoor enthusiast to another.
Eastern Mountain Sports — known simply as EMS — is a specialty outdoor retailer offering gear, apparel, and accessories for climbing, hiking, camping, skiing, snowboarding, and paddling. Founded in 1967 in Wellesley, Massachusetts, EMS became a staple of the northeastern outdoor recreation community.
A F Alber built 4 EMS retail store locations beginning in 2010. These were full retail build-outs — outfitting raw or second-generation spaces with the fixtures, finishes, and infrastructure needed to support a specialty outdoor retail environment.
The EMS program represents the kind of work A F Alber does best: retail store construction delivered with the precision and reliability that comes from decades of rollout experience.
Eastern Mountain Sports didn't come through the usual referral chain. This one started with a cold call — and it was driven by something personal.
The Alber family are serious winter sports enthusiasts. Anthony Alber has been volunteering with the National Ski Patrol for over 25 years — not as a hobby, but as a commitment to the mountain community. Tony and John love skiing and snowboarding. The outdoors isn't something the Albers market; it's something they live.
So when Anthony picked up the phone and called EMS, it wasn't just a business development call. It was a conversation between people who shared the same passion for the outdoors. Anthony understood the brand because he was the customer. He knew what an EMS store should feel like because he'd been shopping in them for years.
That authenticity made the difference. EMS didn't just get a contractor — they got a builder who genuinely understood their customer and their brand. The cold call led to 4 store build-outs and a relationship built on shared values.
Most of A F Alber's clients come through referrals — construction managers who change companies, architects who bring trusted contractors to new brands. But EMS came a different way.
Anthony Alber has been a member of the National Ski Patrol for over 25 years. Tony and John are avid skiers and snowboarders. The Alber family doesn't just build stores for outdoor brands — they live the lifestyle those brands represent.
When Anthony cold-called Eastern Mountain Sports, he wasn't reading from a script. He was talking about a brand he already knew, stores he'd already shopped in, and gear he'd already used on the mountain. That kind of authenticity is hard to manufacture — and it's what turned a cold call into 4 store build-outs.
