Gloucester’s Newton Bus Service has grown significantly from the one bus that founder Alvin Newton ran to Naval Weapons Station Yorktown in 1954.

Warren Newton, Alvin’s son and current president, said the business took a big hit following terrorist attacks in 2001 and in subsequent years as many groups that once booked charter buses stopped taking trips. But the charter business, especially trips up and down the East Coast and into Canada, provides some improving business.

However, Warren said the business has prospered by being creative and acquiring U.S. Department of Defense clearance to transport many military workers daily from the Newport News Shipbuilding North and South Yards. Today, the business is 50 percent charter and 50 percent shuttle, he said, with coaches offering amenities such as television screens and tablet hookups.

Warren said the coach to Yorktown later led to coaches going to Newport News Shipbuilding, Langley Field and even to Dahlgren. The business contracts out so that some of its buses are used in hurricane relief, such as now underway in the Deep South.

Alvin Newton, who died last year, would be pleased at how the business has provided jobs for several family members. And the youngest Newton, eight-month-old Patrick, sat in on his first board meeting recently and “laughed appropriately,” proud grandmother Sabina Newton (Warren’s wife) said; she is secretary for the business.

Patrick’s dad is Casey Newton, vice president of the company, and his wife Danielle, is the safety director. Warren’s daughter Barrette is second vice president.

Newton Bus Service employs 65 full- and part-time workers. The business is based at Bellamy, where it has an office and a maintenance facility where it repairs its buses and those of other companies that might break down in this region.