Focus

Companies looking for new or refreshed office space shouldn?t consider walls and chairs alone. Rather, a space hunt is an opportunity to find your company?s soul, says Tanya Spaulding, principal, and David Shea, an architect and founder, of Shea in Minneapolis. The two, who ?tend to fight for air time,? as Spaulding says, explain the metaphysical for Upsize.

Where?s the fiber?

A few years ago, that question was on the lips of large- and small-business owners alike as they scoured the Twin Cities? downtowns and suburbs looking for new office space that offered the best technology money could buy. Wanting better access, quicker and stronger communications and the right to brag about their state-of-the-art headquarters, business owners became fascinated with fiber optic cabling and similar technology. And whenever this type of space went up, these owners came out of the woodwork to put in bids.

So ask that same question today. Where?s the fiber? Well, pretty much everywhere.

With the ?90s behind us, technology strategy might seem like a distant concern for most businesses today.

Not so for the four local firms featured in this story. Each has launched or broadened major computer-related projects in the last few years. Here their projects are profiled, including the factors motivating it, what it cost in time and money, and the results.

Most people think it?s agony to pore over phone bills and access charges and figure out the errors. For Cheryl O?Brien, it?s both an exhilarating challenge and a business. She started Technology Management Corp. of Shorewood 18 years ago, and spends her and her associates? time auditing clients? technology bills and systems and letting them know how to money.

O?Brien tells Upsize that owners can do the light lifting themselves, and she says they?ll love the feeling of empowerment when they do.

Not many people can give a history lesson on Cambridge quite like longtime resident George Johnson, president of Cambridge Properties.

Johnson could spend hours talking about how the central Minnesota town has developed from a rural farming outpost to an active retail, manufacturing and small-business hub in Isanti County, where it is also the county seat.

With a population at almost 7,000, one might not consider this city bustling. Cambridge still has the old-town charm, small-town feel, and everyone-knows-everybody relationships that can bind a community together.

Kathi Schaaf believes that in order for a chamber of commerce to succeed, it must give the members of the organization value. She also knows that in order for businesses to succeed, they need ample resources to grow. She works to see that the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce meets those challenges.

?People who join the chamber want a return on their investment,? says Schaaf, executive director. ?It?s no longer acceptable for a company to join the chamber just to say they?re involved with the community. If they join, they want programs that can benefit their business.?

Sometimes you have to start over.

Four years ago, the founders of HDD Inc., the Henderson-based designer and developer of health-care training and educational materials, realized they couldn?t grow as a custom shop if they limited the company to paper. The company, which serves hospitals, long-term care facilities and medical device companies, was in search of a new direction.

Co-founder and CEO Judy Hoff wanted something that was interactive, convenient and fun for health-care workers needing training or continuing education, but also cost-effective for health-care providers. Printed materials, she says, are expensive and become obsolete, and classroom time is costly and time-consuming.

It didn?t take her long to figure out that e-learning was the way to go.

?We knew the Internet was the wave of the future,? says Hoff, a registered nurse and educator, who was a sales training manager for Pfizer Inc. before launching HDD, also known as Healthcare Documentation & Development. Her business partners are her husband, Ron Hoff, a computer scientist, and Peter Anthony, also previously with Pfizer. ?We took a step back and decided to leverage our core competencies: medical education and IT.?

Spend time with Tom Heerman and you get the impression of someone who is an analytical genius who can break down any problem and solve it in no time.

Spend time with Chuck Lodge and you can?t help but be energized by his intelligence, his knowledge of the business world, and his passion for success ? and that?s without even knowing the product he is selling.

Together, they are part of Long Lake-based Baltix Furniture, a company that designs and develops environmentally sustainable workstations made from materials such as wheat byproduct, sunflower hulls, soy, recycled plastic milk containers and recycled newsprint.

Heerman, 44, is the president of the company. Lodge is the national vice president of sales. Baltix employs five people at its Long Lake office, but through its virtual sales representatives throughout the United States ? outsourced engineers, manufacturers and distributors ? has a team of about 200 people. The company produced revenue of $2 million in 2002 and expects that to jump to $4 million in 2003.

It?s been rough for all kinds of businesses. Still, as one almost-cheerful business owner said, ?It could be worse we could be in the travel industry.?

Christy Sazama, spokesperson for MLT Vacations in Edina, ticks off the blows to that hard-hit sector, beginning with soaring fuel prices even before the attacks on the World Trade Center.

?This year,? Sazama notes, ?we?ve had the war in Iraq, SARS and the Northeast blackout. We?re still not back to where we were before 9/11, although it?s more the economy than fear now.?

For leisure travel companies, there?s yet another wrinkle. ?We?re seeing a major change in the way travel is distributed. The airlines no longer pay commissions to travel agents, and consumers are using the Net to shop around much more.?

Two Twin Cities custom tour firms, Crossing Borders Inc. in Bloomington and Preferred Adventures Ltd. in St. Paul, have faced it all. They offer solid insights about what business owners can do when faced with upheavals they can?t control and can?t always predict.

Local recipients of Small Business Administration loans own different types of companies, but often have something in common: Their stories and persistence are inspiring.

Consider the example of Barbara Hensley, who lost both her sisters to breast cancer within two years of each other. After working through her grief, she came up with a business plan that combined a nonprofit foundation and for-profit retail store that helps fund breast cancer research.