After graduating from the University of Florida at 24, Chris Weaver had his sights set on law school. Then his father, Arthur, died unexpectedly. And something had to be done about the family manufacturing business, AWI, which Arthur owned and ran together with Chris' mother, Marianne. "There were a lot of ways it could have gone," Weaver says.
CHRIS WEAVER
Vice President, General Manager /AWI/CDT
Fort Lauderdale
Interests: Triathlons, golf, working toward an executive MBA from UF.
Light Reading:
Design Engineering, Electronic Products,
Harvard Business Review.
Christmas Plans: Spending time with visiting siblings.
It went this way: Weaver took over the small operation and grew revenues 500% from 1994 to 2000. "I was young and dumb and naive and wanted to grow the business as large as I could," he says. He expanded AWI from the design and manufacture of electrical connectors to contract manufacturing of connector, cable and circuit board assemblies. He cut costs by vertically integrating so that AWI manufactured from scratch -- from resin pellets and bare copper wire.
AWI specializes in marine, military and telecom markets. In 2001, Weaver sold it to Cable Design Technologies, a Pittsburgh company with $554 million in revenue. With telecom in the dumps, AWI's head count has fallen to 75 from 115.
Weaver won't reveal AWI's revenue or profit. In an industry where innovations quickly become commoditized, Weaver has to keep ahead on the design curve and speed-to-delivery. A trained machinist and tool-and-die maker, Weaver himself has one patent in his name and a second pending.
"It was kind of strange the way things worked out," though, he says of his father, "I think the way it has gone is the way he would have liked it to work out."
Running the operation has meant lots of interaction with lawyers, which has clarified the 32-year-old's thinking about the career he once planned on. "I've seen it close enough to know it would be the most mind-numbing job."
AN EARLY START
As a 10-year-old, Bruce Messerman delighted in doing jobs during the summer at a Tampa steel cabinet factory founded by his grandfather. Funny thing about the habits of youth ... 30 years later Messerman is president of Design Options, a Tampa manufacturer of steel office furniture founded by his father, Jerry Messerman.
BRUCE MESSERMAN
President / Design Options
Tampa
Magazines: Road & Track, Car & Driver, Sports Illustrated, Boating Life.
Past Interest:
Restoring antique cars. "Right now, I'm focused on raising my family and really trying to get our company to another level."
Family:
Wife, Trish; daughters, Ashley, 17, and Austin, 12; son, Stuart, 6.
Jerry Messerman, chief executive, started the company in 1981 as an offshoot from the cabinet business where Bruce got his boyhood start. Design Options made printer stands and similar peripheral furniture until GTE Data Services one day made a custom order for a modular steel "desking" system. The Messermans turned the order into a new business line -- desks, overhead storage, filing cabinets, conferencing and training stations and the like.
The 130-employee company competes against much larger manufacturers such as Steelcase, Hayworth and Herman Miller. The Messermans say annual revenue is $20 million -- they won't disclose profit information -- and they expect a 10% to 15% increase this year.
Design Options sells nationally through dealers. End-users tend to be universities, the government, hospitals and a gamut of businesses from medical offices to insurance companies.
Bruce Messerman, 40, handles manufacturing and operations while Jerry Messerman, 68, handles sales and marketing. "I know a lot of family businesses don't work very well, and some of them have their hiccups," Bruce Messerman says, but "we're not only co-workers, co-owners, but we're best friends." And Bruce Messerman has a son now, Stuart, 6. "He wants to come all the time," Messerman says.
FILTERING PROCESS
Talk about niches: Miller-Leaman, a 30-employee, $4-million revenue company in Daytona Beach, makes filters used to irrigate citrus groves, golf courses and community association property and for cooling water at universities and hospitals. Some products sell for just $500; a custom system recently sold for $150,000.
A family affair: Co-founded in Port Orange in 1991 by Bill Miller after he sold another manufacturer in his native Minnesota, the company's executives include his stepsons, Marty Shuster, 34, as president and co-founder, and Chris Shuster, 33, as vice president of sales and marketing. Miller, 60, built 70% of the plant's equipment, things like an automatic seam welder, from scratch.
Growth: Chris Shuster says the company's revenues have grown 20% to 25% per year -- a pace he hopes will continue. He's looking to diversify by getting products into different industries. For example, the company recently rolled out a marine version of one of its filters.
A sense of place: In 1997, the company bought a long-empty old bakery building -- 1920s era Mediterranean -- in a Daytona Beach enterprise zone. They rehabbed it and listed it on the National Register of Historic Places.
MARTY SHUSTER, CHRIS SHUSTER
Miller-Leaman
Daytona Beach
Attraction to Engines: Family members own Harleys. Marty Shuster and Bill Miller are private pilots. The company has a suite at the Daytona International Speedway. Marty races cars.
Fixer-Uppers: The Shuster brothers and their stepfather own old Spanish-style homes in Daytona.
Christmas Tradition: Each adult family member handcrafts a gift -- or buys an unusual one. Family members bid on them at a Christmas day auction. Proceeds benefit charity.