What Makes Entrepreneurs Tick?; G. Williams

by Gary S. Williams I t seems it has always been hard times in southeastern Ohio. When the glacier stopped just short of the region several million years ago, it defined the economic future. It left the region with beautiful hills, but there was a flip-sideto this blessing. The hills broke up the landscape so that only small-scale development was possible. Con sequently the region has lagged behind eco nomically, even though it was the first part of the state to be settled. Hardship to one, however, may represent opportunity to another. It is true that un employment rates have been high in the region, particularly now that many of the natural resource-based industries are in de cline. But some enterprising individuals have seen this as a place of unfettered possibilities where a lack of restriction and a welcoming of any enterprise makes it a place where dreams can come true. The entrepreneurs profiled here have suc ceeded through the strength of their own merit and initiative without outside help. In fact, they have overcome bureaucratic ob stacles in the pursuit of their vision. And while their stories are regional in character, the principles involved are universal.

Zoned Out of Cleveland For sportswear manufacturer Alan Mar cosson, southeastern Ohio offered an unhindered opportunity to pursue his dream. Marcosson, 43, is the owner of Good Stuff sportswear. He moved to Woodsfield (Mon roe County) in 1985, after his home-based mail-order business was turned in for a zoning violation in suburban Cleveland. Alan got into sportswear because of a lifelong talent and passion for bicycle rac ing. The Amateur Bicycle League of Amer ica named him Best-All-Around Rider in 1971, and he just missed making the Olym pic cycling team in 1972. Many serious \bicycling enthusiasts wind up in bicycle relatedjobs, but Alanjokes that, "I decided I was going to try and be normal." After graduating from Michigan State with a de gree in engineering, he took a job in elec trical engineering. "It was fascinating for about ten minutes," he says of the job, "after that the biggest problem was staying awake." He quit after three months.

He next found employment at a ski shop, where he taught cross-country skiing and sold equipment. He was not overly fond of this job either but it gave him time to race and he concedes that he "learned about retailing and the business picture" from this experience. Alan began making his own cycling clothes for races and found he had a knack Mr. Williams operates a bookmobile service in southeastern Ohio. 545 546 THE FREEMAN • OCTOBER 1994 for it. In 1976,he started making clothes for others as a hobby, liked the feeling, and soon expanded his efforts. In 1980, he was able to quit the ski shop, although he still had to go back seasonally for a few years. He might have gone on this way indefinitely except that an overzealous neighbor noticed the UPS van making frequent fabric deliv eries to Alan's· apartment and turned him in for violating the zoning law. City officials told Alan he had four weeks to get out or quit his business. He rented a storefront in Cleveland, but paying two expensive rents for his home and business was a losing proposition. Alan saw himself faced with a choice of "downtown or way out in the country."

In 1985, Alan relocated to southeastern Ohio. While visiting relatives in the region, he had been impressed by the hills that offered a vigorous challenge to bicycle train ing. He also found that the economic climate was receptive to his entrepreneurship. He was able to purchase a house with a five year mortgage just two blocks from the county courthouse, with no restrictions on working out of the home. A recently closed shirt factory had left a large pool of skilled laborers. Since the move, his business has grown steadily to the point where Good Stuff sportswear now employs 13 full-time work ers and expects to gross a half-million dol lars in sales this year. The community has welcomed Alan and he returns the favor by sponsoring races and tours that bring people to the area. Of his livelihood Alan says, "There's nothing else I'd rather do. I've never han dled authority figures very well, but with customers, you're on an equal footing. And selling something that you did gives more satisfaction than a paycheck. A lot of the time I forget the purpose is to make mon ey-the doing it is the most important thing.

Free trade is at least more immediate and tangible and certainly more gratifying than anything I've done. I'm not sure whether fact follows philosophy or vice versa, but I'm doing what I do because I could figure out no other way to do it." Bringing a Farm Back to Life What Launny Kramer wants to do is make his 170-acre farm in Washington County "virtually selfsufficient." Kramer, 40, grew up on a farm in eastern Ohio. He believes his rural upbringing was' 'the driv ingforce" that brought him back to the land, but his plans took a circuitous route. Mter high school, Launny enlisted in the Navy, where he spent several years, includ ing a tour of duty in Vietnam. A specialist in helicopter electrical repair, he found work in Philadelphia after leaving the service. There he and his wife, Lucy, started a family that eventually grew to nine children: eight sons and a daughter. But city life didn't suit the Kramers and they found it difficult to find anyone who would rent to such a large family. In 1988, they purchased a rundown farmhouse near Lower Salem on land that hadn't been farmed in thirty years. Launny had left a lucrative field to move to a region of high unemployment, a risk since regular income would be needed to get a farm operable. But with Lucy's encouragement, he made the leap.

Launny found work as an independent coal truck driver, but a series of over-weight citations and major repair problems made this a losing proposition as the truck was often off the road. He was between jobs when Lucy, pregnant with their ninth child, developed complications that required med ical attention. Health clinic officials as sumed the Kramers were on welfare and were.surprised when Launny said he would pay the bills himself. Their reaction was to accuse the Kramers of child endangerment and to threaten to take custody of the children unless the family went on public assistance. The incident left Launny with a bitter aftertaste. "We brought these children into the world and we were going to take care of them," he says. "The threat of being forced to accept welfare was a scary proposition government intervention at its very worst. They want to get people dependent on them and take away their means of making it on their own. They just justify their existence WHAT MAKES ENTREPRENEURS TICK? 547 by making regulations. You know, sooner or later, a parasite will kill its host."

What saved Launny from public assis tance was finding a job as a replacement worker at Ravenswood Aluminum. The West Virginiaplant was embroiled in a bitter strike and was hiring to replace striking workers. Launny took this dangerous as signment and when the strike was settled after 20 months, he was one of the replace ment workers who was kept on. Returning strikers have been hostile to Launny-his tires were slashed a few months ago -but he shrugs it off. "I wouldn't be any better off if they liked me," he says,- "and I want to work there until the farm is paid off." When the discussion returns to his farm, Launny becomes animated as he describes his plans. The jobs he hopes to create are for his children. "I want to diversify for how ever many of my sons want to join in." Currently he has beef cattle, com, and fruit trees, and has plans to get into aquaculture and dairy farming. He would like to have a partner who will put up venture capital in return for a slow but steady rate of return.

As he says, "With a partner, it would go faster if I didn't have to be the artist and the backer at the same time." Launny thinks of farming as a creative undertaking. "It's like poetry," he says, "taking a place that's almost dead and bringing it back to life. 1 came here with a certain amount of faith that I could do it, although there were periods of doubt. " He likens his experience to that of novelist Tom Clancy, who has said that the only reason he was successful in his writing career was that he didn't know it couldn't be done. "You have to make your opportunities and be willing to pioneer a path," Launny con cludes. "I came here with the intention of farming full-time, but I knew it would take a long time. But I'll be virtually self sufficient in time and I know I can do it." A Birdbath for Indoor Plumbing Ron and Debbie Pruitt relocated to south eastern Ohio in 1980 to pursue a selfsufficient lifestyle. Ron quit his job as a steelworker in Cleveland and the couple bought a 53-acre tract in Monroe County.

They got the basement of their log cabin covered over on Thanksgiving Day the first year, and with the help of neighbors they soon became adept at gardening, canning, hunting, and firewood cutting. In the spirit of Thoreau, the Pruitts made themselves wealthy by keeping their wants few. But they needed cash for such ex penses as their twice-yearly shopping trip for bulk groceries. Ron found employment in a government-sponsored job training pro gram but found the experience distasteful. He left the program vowing, "If I couldn't do better than that on my own, then I'd starve." Ron and Debbie then became chimney sweeps, which gave them a seasonal in come. But it was while building his own chimney that Ron discovered his true call ing. He became fascinated with stone work, and with the aid of an antique stone mallet purchased at a flea market, he began sculpt ing. His first effort was a sandstone birdbath that took nearly 200 hours to complete. It won a prize at a local craft show and sold almost immediately.

Since then, Ron, age 39, has gone on to different kinds of stone and varied subject material. The self-taught artist has come to specialize in mythic figures and has recently completed a mermaid and a dragon. Ron's larger works sell for several thousand dol lars and he is busy enough that the couple's chimney sweeping days are over. Their finances are still precarious and subject, of course, to the vagaries of the art market place. But in the past few years the Pruitts have been able to purchase a Harley Davidson motorcycle for Debbie (to match Ron's), and they have installed indoor plumbing in their home. The Pruitts have made some sales to public agencies but generally disdain grant money and most government projects. Ron maintains that bureaucrats will "buy mod ern art with government money but they wouldn't put it in their back yard." Debbie puts it more succinctly: "People know what's good and they buy quality."

548 THE FREEMAN • OCTOBER 1994 SculptorRon Pruitt selectsa stonefrom his stockpile. Just Do or Die The spirit of entrepreneurship is not lim ited to people moving into the region, as Dean Carpenter of Washington County il lustrates. He is the owner of Carpenter's Woods, a wooden toy-making business he started after he lost his job as a coal miner. When Carpenter, 38, was hired in the mines in 1975,he was told hisjob would last until retirement, but he observes that' 'from the way they operated, I knew it couldn't last." When he was laid off 12 years later, the operation he worked for had shrunk from 1,600 employees to fewer than 200. While he was employed in the region's largest industry, Dean had indulged his hobby of woodworking by purchasing a table saw, band saw, and other equipment. He had made wooden toys and even sold a few to Hallmark. When he lost his job and inquired about unemployment benefits, he found out he was already considered a business and could not receive unemploy ment unless he sold his woodworking equipment.

Looking back on this, Dean observes, "I wasn't ready to be laid off-no one is-it's just do or die. But if they'd have given me unemployment, I might have gotten fat and lazy, so I never signed up for anything. It kinda made me mad then but now I wouldn't go back to the mines if they called me." So Dean chose to support his wife and four children with his own business. He soon discovered that "there's,a big step between crafting and manufacturing-be tween tinkering and making a living. I just had to learn thingsthat nobody could tellme." Dean set up shop in a former one-room WHAT MAKES ENTREPRENEURS TICK? 549 schoolhouse on his property and at one point was making 140 different kinds of wooden toys. To market his products, he rented storefront space in the nearby river town of Marietta. Business was precarious, for the most part, but during Marietta's big Sternwheel Festival, over 8,300 people passed through his store and he sold out of wooden boat toys. This led to his decision to specialize in boats and to sell directly to gift shops. His biggest customer now is the Delta Queen boat line.

Today, Carpenter's Woods no longer has a storefront, still has difficulty getting financing, and is down to three full-time employees from a high of five. But as he finishes an order of 140 boats that are to be shipped to New Orleans the next day, Dean Carpenter announces, "I'm gonna stick with it." What makes an entrepreneur? As these profiles show, part of it is having a dream, and another part is fighting city hall. But perhaps the most important-and business schools haven't found a way to measure it-is willpower, sticking with the dream against the odds. D Back in print! ON FREEDOM AND FREE ENTERPRISE Essays in Honor of Ludwig von Mises Mary Sennholz, Editor I f Carl Menger may be called the father of the Austrian School of economic thought, Ludwig von Mises is his most famous descendant. With his great courage and power of reasoning he counterattacked the forces of socialism and interventionism, always bearing the brunt of the battle. For nearly seventy years he was the rallying point for the forces of freedom and free enterprise, and for the courageous remnants of classical liberalism.

Ludwig von Mises was born on September 29, 1881, in Lemberg in what was then Austria-Hungary. On February 20, 1906, the University of Vienna conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Law and Social Sciences. In commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of this event in the life of Ludwig von Mises some of his friends and disci ples prepared an enduring Festschrift, the title of which indicates his greatest concern: freedom and free enterprise. The collection begins with three scholarly tributes to Mises and his work, and con tinues with seventeen essays organized under the headings On the Nature of Man and Government,On ScientificMethod,The EconomicsofFree Enterprise,The HamperedMarket Economy, and On Socialism. Contributors include: Carlo Antoni, Faustino Ballve, Louis Baudin, Percy L. Greaves, Jr., F. A. Harper, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, W.H. Hutt, Bertrand de Jouvenel, L.M. Lachmann, Fritz Machlup, William H. Peterson, W.E. Rappard, Leonard E. Read, Wilhelm Ropke, Murrray N. Rothbard, Jacques Rueff, Hans F. Sennholz, and Louis M. Spadaro.

In this new edition, Mary Sennholz has updated pertinent biographical and bibliograph ical information, while retaining intact the timeless contributions to this superb collection. 319 pages + index $14.95 paperback THEmEEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY Beyondthe InvisibleHand by Haven Bradford Gow K en Chang, manager of the 7-Eleven store in Mt. Prospect, Illinois, recently made a courageous decision that is costing him money. Because he has moral objec tions to gambling, he has removed his store's lottery machine and no longer is sellinglottery tickets. A few years back, Mr. Chang also courageously removed from his store all pornographic publications, even though his move costs him an estimated $10,000 per year in income. According to Robert Stuart, chairman emeritus of the National Can Corporation and past president of the Chicago Crime Commission, companies and corporations exist not simply to make profits; the owners, managers, and employees of a business also must contribute to the betterment of soci ety. Employers and employees must exer cise moral and social responsibility and practice such values as courtesy, kindness, honesty, decency, moral courage, justice, fair play, and the Golden Rule of treating others the way we would like to be treated.