Designing big dreams

Nation's Business, August, 1997 by Sharon Nelton

If only his father could see him now. When Stephen Slater was a boy all revved up about baseball, he'd go home and start talking up the exploits of Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax.

But his dad, a Silver Spring, Md., auto mechanic, would preach to him about Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, and Josh Gibson. "These are your heroes, son," he would say.

This year, George Paul Slater, who died in 1991, would be especially proud of his youngest son. Stephen Slater is the artist who was chosen by General Mills to design a series of three Wheaties cereal boxes honoring Jackie Robinson on the 50th anniversary of his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers (April 15, 1947), which broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.

Last year, for Black History Month, General Mills brought out a Wheaties box, also designed by Slater, commemorating the Negro Leagues. Designing a Wheaties box, says Slater, "is like doing the cover of Time magazine, as far as I'm concerned."

Stephen (pronounced "Steffen") Slater, 40, heads his own design firm, Slater Publishing, in Eden Prairie, Minn., near Minneapolis. While earning an associate degree in art, he worked in Washington, D.C., at a typesetting firm. There he met his future wife, Kerri Risberg, a sales representative. Eventually, they headed for Minneapolis because Risberg is from Minnesota. Six years ago, after working as an art director for other companies, Slater went out on his own.

In 1993, he lost his biggest account. "It was about a $60,000 hit," he says. "That really hurt, and we almost went under. My wife was pushing me to get a job."

But that loss taught him that no client should account for more than 50 percent of his business. He started over, redirecting the company from an emphasis on designing books and manuals to focusing more on marketing design, such as packaging, corporate identification, and logos.

And that year his luck began to improve. He heard about and joined the Minnesota Minority Supplier Development Council, an organization that promotes corporate purchasing from minority businesses. There he met a General Mills executive who got him in the company door, starting out with small jobs, such as posters for Black History Month. Now he is offered work throughout the company, designing not only Wheaties boxes but also packages for Trix. Frosted Cheerios. and Total. as well as brochures and logos.

Slater credits people at General Mills with reaching out to him once they learned he could perform. "I have to pinch myself because it's such an opportunity," he says.

He now has about 20 clients, including Pillsbury and Orchem, an industrial-chemical company in Fairfield, Ohio. Two years ago, Robert F. Olson, a longtime friend and the founder of Intranet Solutions, Inc., a computer reseller, invited Slater to move into Intranet's headquarters and grow as Olson's company grew. Intranet has since become Slater's largest account.

Slater Publishing drew in $160,000 in revenues last year, and Slater expects 50 percent growth this year. Including Slater, there are two full-time and three part-time staffers.

Despite the preponderance of black themes in his projects, Slater doesn't want to be limited to ethnic work. He doesn't even want to be limited to design. He plays guitar, bass, and piano. He sings and writes music. And he expects to come out in August with a compact disc titled "State of Mind."

He wants to stay small but think big. Although he doesn't see his business growing beyond six people, his aim is to turn into a holding company for multimedia design, and music enterprises. "This is great time for technology and art art music," Slater says, adding: "The opportunities now! It's just awesome.