Dedication and inspiration create jobs across the region.
by Jerry Davich
Without fresh ideas and out-of-the-box thinking, the economy would never grow. That's why young, entrepreneurial minds are such a vital part of the region's future. Read on for some of their stories.
Christopher Barbauld
Ideas. Innovation. Inspiration.
These words best define Christopher Barbauld.
“It's what I live for,” he says after coming off a 22-hour work day. “It's what keeps me from turning the lights off at 5 p.m. and heading toward the door. Instead, I'm up until the wee hours working and thinking of the next idea.”
At his company, The Barbauld Agency in Valparaiso, he and his team of creative conspirators turn innovative ideas into marketing research, corporate branding, advertising campaigns, billboard design, product brochures, you name it.
“What is an idea? For those of us in advertising, it's what we must have in order to put dinner on the table,” says Barbauld, whose formal title is president and idea man. “If your ad agency doesn't live and breathe ideas, then you better find one that does before your business is out of breath.”
While attending Purdue University Calumet, a professor gave him advice he never forgot: “No business works without good marketing.”
“Those words and that pitch changed my life,” says Barbauld, 30, who graduated in 2007.
Soon after, he began giving free advice to businesses until a friend suggested he started charging for his expertise. Two years later, he was in business for himself.
Barbauld doesn't merely meet with his clients. He absorbs their message. He saturates himself with their identity, their story, their goals.
“That's one thing that really sets me and my agency apart from the others,” he says. “I'll stay up all night or not get any sleep at all if I have an idea for my clients.”
His firm has won a few awards, including from American Graphic Design for an eye-catching billboard for longtime client Heinold & Feller Tire & Lawn Equipment. It features a humorous picture of a bald man with text stating, “Curing baldness since 1958, sorry fella… not yours.”
Its origin? An idea, sparked by late-night inspiration and brainstormed innovation.
“In the advertising world, you're only as good as your last idea,” Barbauld says. “And no matter how good that last one was, that idea is only good for that particular client, on that day and that one time. So we'd better be thinking of the next one before we have even finished with the last one.”
Brandon Griffin and Milton Thaxton Jr.
Brandon Griffin and Milton Thaxton Jr.'s young brainchild, Social Media Development Group, was born and raised in Gary–just like them.
Created in 2012, SMDG LLC offers several services to clients across the country, including social media marketing, soft cloud IT help desk, website design, video solutions and search engine optimization. In other words, they can do it all in our high-tech, global and ever-innovative business world.
Griffin, 25, who serves as COO, and Thaxton, 40, who serves as CEO, first met in 2007. After discovering each other's business talents, the two speakers, facilitators and entrepreneurs knew they could merge their skills under the same 21st century shingle.
Their first client was the city of Gary, when they were hired to improve the Steel City's social media presence.
“The city approached us,” says Griffin, who lives in Merrillville.
“It's been a great marriage,” says Thaxton, who also serves as a reverend in his church.
Their office is inside the City Hall Annex at 839 Broadway, making it easy to manage the city's website, Facebook and Twitter accounts with more than 2,000 fans and counting. But SMDG has since brought on many more clients from across Northwest Indiana and beyond, including McShane's office products, the Society of African American Professionals, and the 2014 Young Innovators Video Challenge.
SMDG, which has a staff of nine at its Gary office, also has a sales office in New York City. Still, it's old-fashioned word of mouth, hard work and face-to-face connections that have expanded the business the past two years.
They already landed a customer in California and are now courting clients abroad, with plans for social media “boot camps,” a crash course for business owners who are unfamiliar with digital marketing and development.
“We don't charge for social media. That's free anyway. We charge for our expertise to take advantage of what social media can offer a business,” says Thaxton, the former group sales manager for the Gary SouthShore RailCats.
“Our goal is to exceed our clients' expectations, not just meet them,” Griffin says.
“Our focus is on what our region needs and we want to bring jobs back to Gary and Northwest Indiana,” Thaxton adds.
The company's motto says it all: “We Get It Done.”
Kevin Kaiser
When Kevin Kaiser began his first job at age 15, he couldn't grasp why the owner of Kenny & Carl's Supervalu store in Walkerton worked such long hours.
“Every day I began my shift, around 4 p.m., I would see Carl Vermilyer still in his office or doing various tasks around the store,” Kaiser recalls. “I couldn't understand why an owner of a company would work 12-plus hours a day instead of hiring help that would do that for him.”
Eventually, Kaiser had a light-bulb moment in the ever-illuminating business world: That's what owners and managers do, work until everything gets done correctly.
The now 29-year-old South Bend businessman now fully understands this age-old credo as president of J&D's Creative Colors International of Northern Indiana. The firm is a franchise serving the automotive, commercial and furniture industries with onsite repair and restoration solutions for fabric damage.
Kaiser, the youngest of five, began working there in 2005 as a part-time office worker while attending Indiana University South Bend full-time. He continued working there from his home while holding down another full-time job at Penske Truck Leasing.
After getting married, he decided to leave the larger corporation and stay with CCI even though he had little technical experience. “I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into,” he admits in hindsight.
He did, however, have a deep fondness for its owners, Dick and Jean Neff, who had always gone above and beyond for him. “All I knew was CCI took a major hit with the recession, the owners took a major hit financially, and I wanted to do everything I could to help them rebuild their business.”
Again, he watched another business owner, Dick, begin his work day very early. Again, he learned from his example.
“He took me under his wing to teach me just about everything he knew about running a business,” Kaiser says. “Like Carl, Dick wouldn't ask me to do something that he hadn't done himself or wouldn't do himself.”
Last year, he became company president and now oversees 22 employees using his education, experience and enthusiasm to leverage an emerging trend–the growth of the automotive repair and maintenance industry. His typical day begins at 5 a.m.
“But I try to always be done by 5 p.m. to have time with my wife and 18-month-old son.”
Paul Williams
In 2006, when Paul Williams unleashed his business, Big Dog Transportation, he owned a big dog. It seemed an apt name, though his dog has since died.
What started as a side job, to complement his income as a Spanish and business teacher, gradually became his full-time occupation. He didn't see it coming. “I was just trying to make a couple hundred extra dollars a month,” says Williams, 36, whose company has since hauled 15,000 shipments across the country.
Each year, his firm breaks its record for the number of shipments from the previous year. And today Williams owns and operates a debt-free business with offices in Northwest Indiana, Chicago and Texas, where he recently moved.
But it wasn't always such a bump-free ride. When the country's economy ran out of gas in 2008, he sold his house to keep his business on the road. “I didn't know what else to do,” he says with a chuckle. “The tight economy was a blessing, really. We developed steady customers and changed how we do business.”
With three children and another on the way, Williams trusted in his company and its potential. It paid off in time and his firm now has a dozen “fantastic” employees. “I can't take all the credit,” he says modestly.
He doesn't have an advertising budget, and he hasn't had any drivers on staff for three years. “We're more of a broker these days and it's working out great,” says Williams, a graduate of Hyles-Anderson College in Crown Point.
Today, his primary responsibility is to create and execute a business strategy that ensures the safe and efficient movement of 5,000-plus standard and heavy haul shipments throughout North America. This includes flatbed trucks, enclosed trailers, cross-country refrigerated shipments, rail and intermodal transportation.
It helps that he's very familiar with Mexican and Canadian logistic requirements, and fluent Spanish, too.
Still, he gets calls from potential customers asking if he can transport big dogs across the country.
“Sorry, despite our name we don't do that,” he typically replies.
Wade Breitzke
Wade Breitzke could be the 2014 poster child for “Young Innovator.”
He's 27, smart, inventive, charismatic and president of WeCreate Media and 27 Entertainment in Valparaiso. “WeCreate” perfectly describes what his talented think-tank does on a daily basis–they create videos, films, design work and branding expertise.
They create ideas. They create compelling marketing campaigns. And they create imaginative identities for companies in need of one or, more importantly, in need of a new one.
Billed as a close-knit company of ambitious young artists, they work (and sometimes sleep) in an artsy office complex on the west side of the city. It's inside a refurbished old building with more character than a Camus novel.
Their many clients include Walgreens, United Way and General Motors, as well as local entities such as Designer Desserts, Purdue North Central and Grace Point Church, among many others.
“It seems like it all happened at once, but it's been a decade in the making,” Breitzke says during a break in his busy day.
Through 27 Entertainment, his first business endeavor, Breitzke began booking 120 events a year by himself as DJ or master of ceremonies. Soon he realized he had to bring in hired help to keep up with the demand.
“Then I saw a huge need for quality video work in this region,” he says.
This, in part, led to WeCreate, which also offers branding ideas to companies.
“A lot of businesses are doing great things but they have a hard time articulating their message or brand,” he says. “People get caught up in following what others are doing instead of creating a logo with a story and passion behind their brand.”
Breitzke quickly credits his young, hungry staff and his business partner, Jeremy Bustos. His nationally known expertise is high-quality photography, showcased in countless magazine spreads.
“It's been an inspiration working with him this past year,” Breitzke says. “We feel like our collective services will pay off ten-fold for our clients, and for their clients.”
Breitzke also credits his father, a construction project manager, for teaching him how to transform hard work into high rewards. And also the importance of being honest, in business as well as in life. “I really feel like I'm living the dream. Life is good.”
