HAY RIVER - Lee Anne Campbell is carrying on a family business tradition in Hay River.

Campbell, co-owner and manager of G&L Workwear, is the third generation of her family to own a retail business in the South Slave community.

The late Don Wright, her grandfather on her mother's side of the family, opened a hardware store on Vale Island more than 50 years ago.

And, her parents - Bob and Nancy Jameson - also operated a hardware store until they sold it and retired.

"It really is a retail family," Campbell said, adding her grandfather on her father's side was also a retailer in southern Alberta.

Her own retail experience goes back to when she was a child.

"I started working for my dad when I was 12," she said, recalling she would help with inventory.

Campbell and her husband, Gord, have owned G&L Workwear for 11 years in the Wright Building, which was once owned by her father.

The store began as a Work World franchise and had that name for five years, until Work World was sold to Mark's Work Wearhouse.

That's when the Hay River store became G&L Workwear, an independent operation, to keep control of its inventory.

"You don't have any inventory control with Mark's," Campbell said. "You just get what they send you."

Campbell explained a retail store in a small town has to please more than its target customers of the working man and woman.

"It's something for everyone," she said, adding, along with work wear, the store sells women's and children's clothing and footwear, for example.

Campbell enjoys many aspects of working in retail.

"I think the best part is being able to satisfy the customer," she said.

She also enjoys dealing with the public and the social side of the business - meeting and talking to people.

Campbell said it is also a challenge to meet customers' needs.

"They want the newest and the most technical," she said, explaining work wear is always changing with new materials, fabrics and technology.

She and her husband keep up to date with the latest by attending two trade shows a year in Edmonton.

Campbell said about 60 per cent of the store's customers are women.

"They're shopping for themselves or their kids or spouses," she said.

Along with serving customers, her work involves ordering, receiving and bookkeeping.

"I think that there's a niche out there for everyone," she said. "If you like people, retail is a good job."