Ready for takeoff: sound strategies and high risks boost entrepreneurs to the other side of sacrifice—better known as success

Black Enterprise, June, 2005 by Nicole Marie Richardson

What is an astronaut feeling as he's sitting on the rocket launch pad strapped into his pod at the brink of takeoff? Determination, fear, and an immense sense of faith are among the emotions tangled in the moment. As the countdown begins--ten, nine, eight, seven--a shot of adrenaline from anxiety and excitement can make the coming explosion seem like the beginning of the rest of his life.

Sitting at the head of a business that's about to take off can be just as euphoric. This year's Freshman Class, the newbies to the BE 100S, are seeing all their risk, sacrifice, and vision realized with successful companies that are experiencing substantial revenue growth.

Daring entrepreneurs, such as Walter F. Johnson III, chairman and CEO of Eagle Group International Inc.; Clifford Franklin, CEO of Fuse Inc.; Carvel Simmons, owner and president of Trio Trucking Inc.; and Art Allen, principal and general manager of Coastal Motorcars, are dynamic strategists, laying the groundwork for success with detailed planning and a resolve to get their due recognition.

RISKING IT ALL

Eagle Group's Johnson is no stranger to risk. In March 1995, when he and his wife, Doris, launched the technical services contracting business, Johnson cashed out his 401(k) and the couple took out two mortgages on their house to cover the startup costs, which ran a few hundred thousand dollars.

When costs continued to soar and several banks refused to give them a line of credit, the Johnsons sold their yacht and the house Walter inherited from his parents. "I had a lot of assets," explains Johnson. "They were not liquid assets, but I had to turn them into liquid assets as we progressed, first to keep the company going without any contracts and second, once we got the contracts, to pay the bills."

For nearly a year and a half the company made no serious money, recalls Johnson, who had quit his $200,000-a-year job with the American Hospital Association and brought in three partners, some out of retirement, to form his company. Eagle Group (No. 36 on the BE INDUSTRIAL/SERVICE 100 list with $98 million in sales) got its lucky break in October 1997 when it received its first big contract with the federal government for logistics work handling and maintaining equipment and supplies for the U.S. Army. Subsequent Army contracts helped the company grow and increase its services to include maintenance, information technology, administration, health services, facilities planning, and construction.

Though contracts were rolling in--despite formidable competition from major government contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin--Johnson established conservative financial goals, aiming to meet $50 million in revenues by the year 2000.

The company is now approaching the $150 million mark in revenues. One strategy that helped Johnson was to surround himself with the right people. Not only do five of his six children work for the company, including son T. Fitz Johnson, who is president, but the number of employees has increased exponentially from the original five to 1,518. The Atlanta-based firm also expanded to include locations in 38 states and eight foreign countries.

The younger Johnson has also laid out a sound strategy for obtaining the company's goals. "If we can take care of two objectives, which are quality service to your customer and taking care of people, then we feel that $200 million is within our grasp by 2007." As a team, Eagle Group employees can manage large, complicated contracts, and the company is currently diversifying its customer base beyond the military to include civilian agencies such as the Department of Labor and the Centers for Disease Control. As a first step in this initiative, Eagle Group recently won a $70 million contract to operate a Job Corps Center, which will allow Johnson to build his business and give back to the community by serving at-risk youth. The company hopes to attract more work with Job Corps Centers, which help young people between 17 and 24 obtain GEDs, training skills, and job placement.

A BOLD VISION

Like the astronaut strapped to a hunk of metal traveling many times the speed of sound, it takes some audacity to burst on the scene with the intention of changing an industry.

Which was exactly what the founders of Fuse Inc. (No. 7 on the BE ADVERTISING AGENCIES list with $53.4 million in billings) planned to do, and achieved, when they took on the advertising industry. When CEO Clifford Franklin started the full-service advertising agency in 1997 with his wife, Sharilyn, and his brother Mike, the plan was to change the face of advertising.

"We never got into this to be just an ad agency," states Clifford Franklin. "We felt like the whole premise of general-market advertising was waning and that this is truly a multicultural society. It was our hope and our focus to be that one agency that consistently produced work that transcended race."

The mission of merging general-market advertising and African American advertising led to the company's name, Fuse Inc. The St. Louis-based agency, with only a handful of employees in the first year, boldly took the industry by surprise when it introduced its "Fuse Manifesto" campaign, which detailed the company's view of the current state of the industry and the direction in which Fuse wanted it to go.