![]() ![]() Skipping ahead to … My career… into the growing field of User Experience Design. Looking back it was a great thing for young teens to focus on and it kept us out of trouble. We performed for younger kids’ birthday parties and even did a show at Beckwith Orchards on one of their popular summer Saturdays. We were the Catchum Jugglers! We had a ton of fun practicing for these gigs and performing at them. With my dad’s help, who was always encouraging us to be creative and think differently, we created t-shirts with our logo on them. We created a name, a logo, fliers, a set list based on our skills and a price that was reasonable for any interested party. Several years later, after joining my Middle School’s juggling club, my good friend Clayton Watson and I had an idea! Why don’t we start our own entertainment company where we would perform for local events, birthday parties, festivals, etc.? So we did just that. I’m sure my parents used this experience as a teachable moment when I got home, them being teachers and all, but all I could remember is that people were happy when I supplied them with something they wanted and I loved selling them something they wanted.Ĭlayton Watson and I Juggling at Beckwith Orchards in Kent, OH He confiscated it all and called my parents. I pulled out my large ziplock bag of quarters, nickels and dimes, and my other ziplock full of sticks of gum. I started selling hundreds of sticks of gum over the next several weeks to everyone I could on the bus ride home.This was my first lesson in sales and economics.Īnd then the principal found out… I still have a distinct memory of being called down to the principal’s office where I had to explain to him what I was doing on the bus each day. ![]() The profit was used to buy more gum to sell and occasionally helped buy extra candy for me. Now knowing how much I could sell a stick of gum for I made sure I would retain a profit after the sale based on the price I paid upfront for a large pack. Learning this, I went to the grocery store the next day and bought big packs of gum for cheap. I learned on my long bus rides home that my fellow schoolmates loved gum but their parents didn’t allow them to have their own, so they were willing to buy it from me for a small price. By happenstance, I ended up selling a single stick of gum to a friend on my bus for ¢5 (that’s $0.05). My entrepreneurial life started when I was in elementary school. My parents later pursued the rental business with much success. As a self-taught general contractor, he started replacing the apple trees that remained orchard land with houses that he built and sold to area residents.Įarly in my parents’ careers, and while they were starting their family, my dad decided to start a feed & tack store in Streetsboro where he had several successful years in retail. This crippled his production levels and he was forced to get creative for the second time in his life. Sadly though, when Interstate 90 was built in the 1960s the state used eminent domain and located the highway through the middle of my grandparents’ farm. When my mother’s father came home from WWII, he married my grandmother, started a family, and cultivated an apple farm in Geneva, Ohio for 18 years. I have several inspiring examples in my family that led me to start Bell Tower Brewing Company. ![]() I have many aunts, uncles, cousins, and my immediate family who all have tried, and successfully, pursued entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship has deep roots in my family’s past and in my personal life. ![]()
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