ThisWeek Keys Story 03/22/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/Key-Bank-Keys-to-Success-stories/2012/03/0315-Turning-Point

Turning Point Fitness owner Lisa Hunsaker doesn’t just know how to keep a body in shape, she’s been keeping her local health and wellness business in shape since 2005, as well.

“I’m very lucky to do what I love and to love what I do, and that can make you successful, regardless of how much money you’re making,” Hunsaker said. “We started out offering five classes a week. Now we offer four to five classes a day as well as doing personal training for our clients.”

In 2005, Hunsaker, a new stay-at-home mom, decided to take her hobby of teaching exercise and aerobics to the next level, she said.

At first, she rented studio time from the dance school next door to her present location at 5890 Chandler Court in Westerville.

“I was teaching Pilates four days a week at the rented space in the dance studio, and during that time, I started looking at doing it a little more seriously,” Hunsaker said. “In the Pilates world, there’s mat work and equipment work, so I started buying the equipment and needed a place to store it. As I grew from teaching mat-based Pilates to getting certified in equipment-based Pilates, my class grew with me.”

It was at that point in 2008 that Hunsaker had the opportunity to rent an open space next door to the dance studio, she said.

“I was at the right time and right place. I rented the space next door and my clients followed me, and that was when I officially opened in my own space,” she said. “Then last fall, in 2011, I expanded again, combining my space with a vacant space next door.”

According to Hunsaker, the keys to her success have been growing slowly while building a following, using the lessons she learned from previous work experience and building a culture around what she is doing that is welcoming to clients.

“This all kind of started as a hobby for a stay-at-home mom,” she said. “My professional career was in hospitality management and project management. The ability now to create a culture I believe in as opposed to acclimating to someone else’s corporate culture is important.

“I truly love this business, what I’m doing and the clients I work with.”

Hunsaker said she grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and that helped her to understand that renting her own space before having clientele wasn’t the best option for her. It also helped her understand the time commitment involved with running her own business.

“My parents provide me with a very honest perspective about small business,” she said. “I grew up helping at the store and it teaches you good work ethic and responsibility. Some people have a second home; mine is my studio.”
Most importantly, Hunsaker said, is that her clients are having fun.
She said that comes from the personal attention her instructors provide and the culture of inclusion promoted in her classes.
“There’s a level of attention clients get form our instructors (that is) uncommon at larger facilities. Our average class size is eight to 12 students and my clients are friends, people who get to know each other. They look for each other,” Hunsaker said. “You can get fitness classes anywhere, but you can only get this level of instruction, attention and this culture here.
“We want people to be successful and my instructors teach that, too.”

ThisWeek Keys Story 03/22/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/Key-Bank-Keys-to-Success-stories/2012/03/0315-Ricart-Auto.html

The Ricart brothers’ passion for automobiles has been the driving force behind their business for years.

The brothers, who co-own the Ricart Automotive Group, acquired that passion from their father, Paul Ricart.

“In 1953, my father started a dealership in Canal Winchester for $12,000. He was a family guy, very simple, and he got into it after being in the Navy and working for General Electric,” Rhett Ricart said. “He went to Muskingum College as a music major and he loved cars. We all love cars —  anything with wheels, really — bicycles, motorbikes.”

Since the 1980s, Rhett, Fred and Peter Ricart have been running the three major pieces of the Ricart business, including Ricart Automotive, a credit company and a substantial investment in Procon GPS, the world’s largest manufacturer of GPS tracking devices for animals, cars and boats, according to Rhett Ricart.

Currently, Ricart employs about 400 people in Columbus.

Ricart said his love of technology and measuring everything is the yin to his brother Fred’s creative commercials yang. Since the late 1980s, Fred has included his guitar-playing in commercials.

“Fred is the comedian of the family, and I’m the nuts-and-bolts man, so it’s very yin and yang,” he said. “We all love music. Fred was picking at his guitar between commercial takes and that was how his guitar pieces got started.

“All three of us brothers are different, and that’s what makes it fun.”

According to Rhett Ricart, when he and Fred first got into the business in 1981, they used their education in marketing and biochemistry to change the small family business into the No. 1 Ford dealer nationwide for 15 straight years. The company also was the largest dealer of all makes and models for four straight years.

“When my brother and I got in here, we started changing the business. We didn’t have much technology. My father was a good mentor in terms of taking care of customers and working hard, but we wanted to be more forward-thinking with our marketing and technology,” he said. “These are the keys to our success: a good father who was a good mentor, our commercials and our technology.”

Technology isn’t just a tool for accomplishing business, it has become its own business as well, Ricart said.

“We measure everything. We’re very computer-savvy and we’ve designed systems that we ended up selling to software companies. That’s been my end of the business,” he said.

“We aren’t afraid to experiment with technology, apply technology and fail — unless you have a stomach for that, you might as well not do it. New technology sometimes requires you to change your culture as well or it won’t work. That’s the hidden success factor behind Ricart.”

Another important factor for the company’s success is listening to employees, customers, vendors and consultants, he said. “A consultant can give me an outside-in look at my business, and they are the ones looking at businesses all around the country, so they can bring you best practices,” Ricart said. “If you’re listening to your customers, employees and vendors, they’ll tell you where to go and lead you to success.”

“If you’re just listening to yourself, you’ll go down the wrong path.”

He said listening was key.

“Don’t shoot the messenger when you get bad news; be conscious of the fact that they’re bringing you information that you need to listen to,” Ricart said. “As long as you listen, you’ll be in good shape.”

ThisWeek Keys Story 03/22/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/Key-Bank-Keys-to-Success-stories/2012/03/0315-Dynalab-Inc.html

Reynoldsburg’s Dynalab Inc. is a model of central Ohio’s potential for manufacturing the future of technology close to home.

“We know we have good management, good associates and good customers, so we’re very optimistic about our future,” company founder and owner Gary James said.

“Manufacturing’s contribution to the economy is the creation of goods, which creates value. Without manufacturing, this country will have a very bleak future.”

James said current regulations and tax structures are a challenge to manufacturing in the U.S.

“We need the government to get out of the way and let us be creative,” he said. “Manufacturing is at a disadvantage because of the regulatory and tax structure, and if things don’t change, manufacturing businesses like ours won’t be here long term.”

But Dynalab remains successful even in a tough economy, James said.

That success is built on several basic principles.

“Our business model is a simple one: Provide a service that others need at a fair and reasonable price, treat customers and fellow associates with respect and in a way that any individual wants to be treated, and keep an open mind toward opportunity,” James said.
The company is diversified across three primary businesses, according to James.

• Dynalab Electronic Manufacturing Services makes electronic circuitry for a variety of uses, supplying components to several Fortune 500 firms around the world.

• Dynalab Test Systems is an industry leader, used primarily in the transportation industry worldwide for testing wiring harnesses and components used in vehicles.

• GPAX is a specialty packaging system for automatic manufacturing component feeders, allowing for the automation of manufacturing processes that use nonstandard-size components.

“We currently have a contract to build the smart (electric) meters,” James said. “We produce as many as 100,000 smart meters a month. Besides that, we produce about 225,000 printed circuit boards a month for other contracts.”

The smart meters, used by power companies such as American Electric Power in Ohio, allow for remote meter-reading, tracking usage statistics and disabling service remotely, something James said makes high-turnover properties easier to manage.

“When you consider, say, an apartment complex on campus that has new tenants every year or so, that’s a lot of billing changes and switching service on and off,” he said. “These meters allow AEP to do that remotely.”

Dynalab currently employs more than 250 people and sometimes reaches more than 300, depending on the workload, according to James.

“Part of our success is attracting and retaining good people,” he said. “Most of our management and many of our production people have been here 20-25 years.

“It gives me a lot of pride to know that I’m a product of the local school system, and I’m proud of how we give back to the community, supporting Angel Flight, STEM programs, youth basketball programs and other philanthropy.”

James said the STEM programs (science, technology, engineering and math) are important to preparing youths for future jobs and providing a workforce that enables entrepreneurs to choose central Ohio to set up businesses.

“The skill sets required to support our manufacturing are the very things that programs like STEM are providing,” James said.

ThisWeek Keys to Success 02/16/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/Key-Bank-Keys-to-Success-stories/2012/02/JenisSplendidIceCreams.html

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams serves up success by knowing what it does best and putting the right amount of energy into it.

“I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I learned early how it’s important to make something extraordinary while making it as easy as possible for people to buy and enjoy it,” owner Jeni Britton Bauer said. “People didn’t know they wanted spicy ice cream until we showed them, we had to create the market by showing people what we do.”

Britton Bauer began her adventures in retail ice cream manufacturing in 1996 with Scream, her first attempt at a stand in the North Market.

“When I had Scream, one of the big lessons I learned is that our ice creams were unusual, and at the time, easy to pass up, since there wasn’t the normal offerings like chocolate chip,” Britton Bauer said. “I had to learn to make our shop welcoming by giving away lots and lots of samples and not asking people to necessarily buy anything. They found that they were really having this crave-able experience.”

Lessons on how to make creative products and then market them to customers started early in life for Britton Bauer, she said.

“I think a lot of these seeds get planted when we’re children. One of my grandmothers was an artist; my other grandparents had a business they ran. They always encouraged my sister and me to find a need and fill it in the community,” Britton Bauer said. “Whatever that was, lawn mowing or, for us, we’d go to my grandmother’s and learn to knit flowers and things, and then we’d find people in the neighborhood to buy what we made.”

Britton Bauer attended The Ohio State University for Fine Arts and Art History before a job at a local French restaurant led her to experiment with ice cream making.

“I was working at La Chatelaine, learning so much from the French chefs there, and I started making pastry and such and I thought it would be fun to take the French techniques but make very standard American treats,” Britton Bauer said. “But I didn’t really get far into it because I got stuck on experimenting with ice cream. I had some essential oils around because of my interest in experimenting with perfumes, and that was when I first decided to mix cayenne pepper and chocolate ice cream – and that’s how history was made.”

Working for the locally owned restaurant gave Britton Bauer an insight into how she thought she could be successful with her own small business; one that now employees up to 300 people during the busy summer months, with 10 store fronts, almost 300 wholesale customers nationwide, and her biggest business – online mail order sales.

“We built our business incredibly slowly, it’s ramped up faster over the past two years, but we started in 2002, and Scream was open from 1996 to 2000,” Britton Bauer said. “I believe you won’t fail if you make an exceptional product, start very slow and on a shoestring – don’t borrow a bunch of money right off the bat. Instead, spend time learning what it is that you’re here to do, and build the right team to do it.”

In 2010 Britton Bauer hired John Lowe as the companies CEO, something she says was a key to their continued success.

“One of the very important keys as an entrepreneur is to have a keen understanding of your strengths, and the ability to put all of your energy in to that,” Britton Bauer said. “Mine are having vision, doing design work and creating flavors and customer service, getting details right, but I’m not good at business development or doing things like getting Ugandan Vanilla through customs – and John is great at that side of the business. So we’re a perfect team that way, we have the sort of A-team between me, my husband Charly, brother-in-law Tom, and then John. We all have our strengths and work well together to shine.”

ThisWeek Keys to Success 02/16/2012

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/Key-Bank-Keys-to-Success-stories/2012/02/CornaKokosing.html

Constructed around the values of quality and integrity, Corna Kokosing is a family business with a commitment to central Ohio that stretches back to 1956, according to Executive Vice President Jim Negron.

The company is a full-service construction management contractor with self-perform capabilities, and according to Negron, that means Corna Kokosing directly employs many of the craftsmen, currently about 200 locally, who have a range of skills from concrete to structural steel, carpentry and drywall.

“I can tell you from my personal standpoint (President Mark Corna) has always made sure that everyone who works here has values that align with our company values,” Negron said. “We always put the customer first and we always do the right thing.”

In the current economic environment opportunities to bid on construction jobs are shrinking, Negron said. He believes Corna Kokosing’s advantage is this set of values that draw clients back, again and again.

“The construction markets have shrunk, and competition is increasing, and with that everyone has had to try to raise the level of service they provide. I’ve been here for 20 years now and the client has always been first priority, so it was easy for us,” Negron said. “But our competition has had to try and catch up. Just a couple of years ago 76 percent of our business was from repeat clients and that number has increased, even as the times have gotten tougher, it’s at 82 percent now.”

Corna Kokosing has been involved in a diverse set of projects over the years, Negron said, from retail, entertainment and residential to industrial, education and healthcare facilities.

“I would say that the market focus is in healthcare and education facilities right now, that’s where we see our client needs lie and that’s two areas our expertise lies,” Negron said. “Nationwide Children’s Hospital just finished a major new patient tower and now they have to go back to the old building and bring it up to the new standards, we’re working on that. That’s going to be the trend now where (hospitals) have completed big new projects and need to go through and bring the old buildings up to the new standards.”

Technology is changing the construction industry, and according to Negron, Corna Kokosing has always been an early adopter of new technologies.

“Technology is really transforming the construction industry, when you consider 3D technology, the information from that is what we call building information technology, and we’ve been involved in that for over eight years as a part of our normal business,” Negron said. “We’re taking that to the next level now, we’re using this technology to input time and create scheduling models to use it to create efficiency and do offsite prefabrication of the pieces and parts of the buildings.”

Negron said Corna Kokosing values its commitments, to their values of quality and integrity, as well as to giving back to the community through participation on various organizational boards and making financial and in-kind donations.

“We’re a part of the fabric of central Ohio, this is our city, our community, and we’re very active in it, our commitment goes beyond work, it goes to the community through giving money and time too,” Negron said. “One thing about construction is that you can’t export what we do, this is a very local business.”