One of Concord’s longest running veterinarian practices is under new ownership. Well, we don’t have any official proof that the Cilley Veterinary Clinic is one of the city’s oldest, but it has been operating since 1925, so we think it’s probably a safe bet.
Come to think of it, we don’t technically have proof that Dr. Tom Heck, a veterinarian at Cilley for 16 years, is really the new owner. We didn’t ask him for any documentation. But the staff seemed to be on board with the story, so we’re going to go ahead and trust him on this one.
Heck took over the business from longtime owner David Berliner earlier in September, putting the finishing touches on a deal that had been discussed for several years and came together “wholeheartedly” in the last 12 months.
Owning a practice has been a longtime goal of Heck’s, and somewhere in the nearly two decades he’s spent at Cilley he decided there was only one place he could truly imagine himself for the long haul.
“I realized a long time ago, I’ve put so much into this place developing a rapport with our clients and their pets that it would be silly to go somewhere else and try to reproduce that,” Heck said.
All he’s going to try to produce is what Cilley clients have already come to know. The staff features many employees who have been there for more than 10 years, and Heck has no plans to institute sweeping changes.
“I’m not going to reinvent this wheel. It’s rolling pretty good,” Heck said. “The faces you see are going to be the same. And the way we do things will be the same, hopefully even better.”
Indeed, any tweaks Heck implements will be on the smaller scale, and they may even come from you – he said he encourages clients to offer their opinions as he gets settled into the new role. (He’ll continue his position as a full-time vet, as well.)
We suggested story time for the dogs every Tuesday with the latest issue of the Insider, but we didn’t get any guarantees.
“I’ve been a vet here for 16 years, but I’ve been an owner for 10 days,” Heck said. “If clients feel they want to give me feedback, let me know.”
The clinic has been run by Berliner since 1971, when he bought it from a member of the Cilley family, Heck said. Heck arrived in 1998, and he’s built lasting and meaningful relationships with the staff and most of the clients who walk through the door on a daily basis.
He’s asked the staff for input into how to make things run smoother, too, and the recent news pretty much ensures he’ll be around to see all of it through to fruition.
“I’m not going anywhere for the foreseeable future,” Heck said, though we didn’t ask him how far into the future he can actually see. “I’m pretty well entrenched here now.”
