Back in March, I wrote about our start up years.  I will continue the story with how we began to grow as a company. I was able to boldly leave my real job at MicroPace after we were awarded the Northern Indiana Historical Society project.


It was a big job for a company operating out of a farm house and renovated chicken coop.  I remember some of my last days at MicroPace.  I brought in a check for $25,000, our down payment, and jokingly said I would be moving on.  I just wanted to hold it for awhile.  I think it was more than my yearly salary.  The owner of MicroPace, Bob, was very encouraging of my entrepreneurial dreams and cheered me on.  We got the subcontract through Exhibit Concepts.  I had been calling on them for more than a year.  Persistence works.

Our landlord at the farm, our neighbor, saw that we were growing.  He approached us and offered to build our first production building for an increased rent.  This was wonderful and we got our first production building.  The landlord had been very accommodating during the start up years.  He didn’t charge us more when Charlotte and Smokey, my horses, moved onto the property.  He let me throw up some fences on the waterway and give his kids rides instead of raising our rent.  Even when I had no money, I always found a way to have my horses.  People will help when you show them you are willing to work for it.

At this time, we were primarily a fabrication only company.  Clients kept asking us to help with their designs.  Often the designs we received needed reworking and we would produce those drawings.  One of those early clients was the children’s museum in Decatur, IL.  We designed an exhibit called Our Body, Our House.  I even did some of those drawings and I cannot draw.  Thank goodness I can hire talented designers now.  Another early design/build project was the history of trash for Waste Management Inc. in Chicago.

Eventually, around 1997, The Spurlock Museum of U of I in Urbana asked us to design their exhibits.  This was a big project.  We were officially a design company, too.  Some of my clients and staff did not like that we openly became a design/build firm.  That is a story I will tell another time.  Boldly offer what the market demands.

By 1998, we were growing beyond the capacity of the farm.  Our landlord offered to build us another building, but we wanted our own place.  We found a 12,000 square foot building in Rantoul for the low, low price of $75,000.  It was filled with tenants, it had work bays and office space, it was ugly and needed work.  Several of our staff questioned why we would move to such an ugly building.  We invested another $75,000 in renovations and we had a nice building.  We kept our overhead low and had a vision of what the building could look like.

1.  Be persistent.

2.  Prove yourself and put in the effort.

3.  Listen to the market.

4.  Keep your overhead low.

5.  Have a vision of the future.