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Skagit County grows great crop of businesses
Innovation, savvy marketing keys to success
by Marina Parr
What does it take to make your business great?
For many it boils down to a good idea, well executed. Beyond that, of course, an A-list entrepreneur requires a keen sense of adventure. You’ve got to be a bit of a risk-taker or you wouldn’t have made the leap from being an employee to someone who holds the reins of your own business.
Still, you’re not foolish. Most successful business people draw up a workable business plan that gets them through the lean times even as they build toward a bigger payday.
All of these traits, and many more, are at the core of cutting-edge businesses throughout Skagit County.
Some are big guys who have been in business for years. Others are start-ups grappling for a foothold in the marketplace.
What they have in common is a sense of purpose, a knack for ingenuity and a real affinity for their customers, folks they gladly go the extra mile for, every time.
The following is a tribute to some of the many top-notch businesses that call Skagit County home.
Janicki IndustriesWhen people mention Janicki Industries in Sedro-Woolley one of the first words out of their mouth is “hot.”
This family-run company nearly doubled its workforce in 2004, although it recently had to ratchet back production levels and introduce some temporary layoffs.
In late February some 365 people were employed at the company, drawing family-wage paychecks in an area once largely dependent on logging and fishing.
The company is involved in several high-profile projects including a contract with the Boeing Company to help on its 7E7 project. Janicki Industries is also hard at work on building tooling for a premier yacht destined for the America’s Cup, at the behest of BMW and Oracle.
“That’s an exciting project,” said chief financial officer Lisa Janicki. “Little Sedro-Woolley is constructing a craft for an international sailing race. That’s cool.”
Engineering powerhouseSince Janicki Industries started in the early 1990s, the company has cultivated a reputation as an engineering powerhouse. Workers construct maritime and aeronautical molds and tooling, which are necessary in the manufacturing process.
When it comes to aeronautics Janicki has helped pioneer the use of carbon-fiber products. It helped revolutionize the production of composite aircraft. In the past, airplanes were made out of expensive metal tools.
Carbon fiber, unlike metal, remains stable despite changes in temperature. It eliminates expansion and contraction issues. The high-tech material also doesn’t suffer from metal fatigue.
“It was progress in advanced materials,” said Janicki. “Other companies have tried to duplicate some of the items we have produced and cannot.”
Recently, the company built a 100-foot-long industrial oven to treat large parts, as well as a custom-milling machine.
Janicki Industries is in the midst of an expansion and is building a new 48,000-square-foot production building at the company’s main site along Highway 20 just of east of Sedro-Woolley. Construction is expected to be complete by mid summer.
The Janicki family used to be better known for its logging company. The Janicki family still operates a logging operation, Janicki Logging, which counts about 30 employees. But the high-tech Janicki Industries has long since eclipsed the family’s original business.
Much of that shift is due to Janicki Industries President Peter Janicki, an engineer and one of eight talented children who went on to run the family business.
Peter Janicki and his brother, John, pushed to add new construction capacity in 2002, even as the economy hit a snag.
“That is a decision I give a lot of credit to Peter and John,” said Lisa Janicki, their sister-in-law. “We were committing capacity and financial resources when the whole manufacturing world was taking a nose dive.”
The company worked closely with Boeing in 2000 and 2001, when the aerospace giant was in the running for a lucrative federal contract to build joint strike fighter planes.
But Lockheed Martin ended up with the job.
Still, that didn’t deter Peter Janicki, who soon arranged to meet with Lockheed officials and jumped aboard a plane bound for one of the company’s facilities in Texas.
“When Boeing didn’t get it, another guy would have been crushed by that,” said Lisa Janicki. “But Peter said, ‘I’m going to Texas.’”
Indeed, it’s that can-do philosophy that powers Janicki Industries, a company that refuses to be hindered by other people’s expectations or limitations.
It’s a lesson other companies can learn from.
“Peter is never limited by what people say can’t be done,” said Lisa Janicki. “We’ll find a way.”
Small businesses booming
Large companies aren’t the only ones doing well in Skagit County. Thanks to an innovative incubator program at the Port of Skagit County, small start-up businesses are getting the chance to move out of garages and basements and into the big leagues.
“It’s the first year or two that it’s hardest for a business to survive,” observed Patsy Martin, the port’s property development manager.
The port’s program gives just-launched businesses a home, with rent starting at just one-third of fair market rates and ramping up to full price in three years.
The port started the program in May 2003 and now counts eight tenants. Each tenant needs to have a workable business plan in hand, that attaches to the lease.
Often, professionals at Skagit Valley College’s Business Resource Center in Mount Vernon, help tenants hammer out the details that show cash flow and revenue projections needed to make their business a success.
Rejuvenetics
Andrew Azure, along with several family members, owns one of these businesses. Dubbed Rejuvenetics, the company manufactures vital energy machines. The device uses tiny electrical currents to help harness the body’s energy, boosting an athlete’s performance or giving anyone who feels a bit sluggish an added kick to their step. The machines retail for $5,400 for a home model and fetch $16,200 for an institutional machine used by sports teams and other practitioners.
This small, family-run business started in the Azure family’s La Conner garage in 1996. Since then, the Azures have spent time and money to do necessary research and development, as they held down other paying jobs.
In 2002, they made the leap into the business full-time but quickly outgrew the 900- square-foot garage. Last year they moved into a 5,000-square-foot facility on port property, with two-thirds of that space earmarked for manufacturing.
A family affair
Azure, a 1985 La Conner High School grad, held various marketing and general management positions in the Seattle area before helping head up the family company as vice president and general manager. Father Larry, a retired high-tech entrepreneur, is chairman and CEO. Sister, Darlene, is vice president of sales and Azure’s mother, Judy, works part time as the company bookkeeper.
“A lesson I think I’ve learned at this stage is you don’t have to know where you are going to end up ultimately,” Azure said. “You just have to know what to do next.”Indeed, the company continues to investigate new markets and has pursued clients they didn’t initially envision. A few veterinarians, for example, are using the machine on horses.
“You have to quickly adapt and develop a product specific to that market,” Azure said.
Another lesson Azure has learned is how to get along with family members, all invested in the same business.
“There’s good and bad but mostly good in being a family business,” he said. “The challenges of being involved in a family business is learning to be objective when there are differing opinions. You have to be objective in a business sense and not take things that personally. Just because they don’t like your marketing idea, doesn’t mean they don’t love you as a son, or as a brother.”
Golden Glen CreameryBrandy Jensen knows a thing or two about working with family. Jensen married into the Skagit County dairy farming family who operate Vic Jensen and Sons in Bow.
She and her husband, Doug Jensen, started talking about how to expand the business. After all, milk prices had hit all-time lows and it was increasingly difficult to make a decent living on the 40-year-old landmark farm.
She and her husband presented their idea early last year at the family’s annual corporation meeting. How about launching a cheese production facility?
“Everyone got really excited about it,” Brandy Jensen said.
Soon she and another daughter-in-law, Andrea, headed to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif. to learn how to make cheese. A class at Washington State University was full at the time.
The pair came back with all kinds of ideas. They reached out to other cheese-makers on the Internet and were able to secure rennet and starter needed to make their own cheeses. They drew up a business plan and worked out the details with Ryan Patrick, director of programs for the Economic Development Association of Skagit County.
Old company learns new tricks“They’re an old-school company that found a new way to keep producing and keep viable,” Patrick said. “You have to admire that.”
The Jensens named their newfound company Golden Glen Creamery. Before they created their first batch of cheese, they consulted with health officials to make sure everything was being done right.
“We worked really closely with our inspectors and the USDA,” Jensen said. “We ensured everything we were doing was going to be OK before we did it.”
And after investing about $60,000 in new equipment, including taking out a Skagit Council of Governments loan, they were set to create their first cheese in August of 2004. They aged that cheese so it was ready for sale during the October Festival of Family Farms.
“It’s really taken off way beyond what we thought it would,” said Brandy Jensen.
They sell their popular cheeses, which come in such flavors as red pepper onion garlic, to restaurants and groceries, as well as from their own farmstead.
“The biggest drive behind everything is the buy-local campaign,” Jensen said. “People just really want to know where their food is coming from, to go right to the source when you buy your food … Even people who get the products in the store, knowing that you can buy something that was made right next door to where you live is kind of neat.”
Jensen added that although the family’s idea to diversify into cheese-making turned out to be a wise business move, she encourages other would-be business owners to do their homework first.
“I really recommend anybody go to their economic development association. They will help you with your business plans and your whole thought process,” she said. “I can’t even tell you the amount of research we did. You have to look at every avenue before you put it into action. I think that’s where a lot of people get ahead of themselves. They just want to do it. They don’t want to set up for it.”
Tello’s GardeningElvi and Tello Hernandez started their Mount Vernon landscaping business slowly. They didn’t really have a business plan.
Instead, Tello Hernandez was working as a custom framer in the early 1990s, when worked slowed. His boss wondered if Hernandez could do some yard work for him during the lull.
Soon Hernandez was doing yard work for friends and the business began to expand. In 1995 the Hernandezes made it their full-time work and bought their first mower and a truck.
Sometimes they took their then 3-year-old son with them on jobs.
“I stuck him on my back while I was weeding,” Elvi Hernandez recalls.
Last year, the couple made the big leap into adding employees. Before that, they contracted with workers to help them with their business. But they realized they needed a stable, committed work force.
Elvi Hernandez sat down with Ryan Patrick at EDASC and he helped her over a series of free consultations boil down an effective business plan.
“He really helped me focus and figure out what we needed to accomplish, what was working and what needed to change,” she said.
They worked on drawing up a detailed employment contract.
“You don’t want to offend anybody,” Hernandez said. “But it’s good to really spell it out and let people know what you expect of them and what you are going to be giving them in return. That’s been a huge thing.”
A visual artist
Last year, the couple found their business growing so fast that they had to turn away jobs. Part of that is due to the quality work Tello Hernandez, a visual artist, provides to their mostly Anacortees area clients.
“He loves turning a landscape into something that really brings the plants out and the colors out. He loves pleasing clients and he loves building relationships with clients,” Elvi said. “There’s satisfaction for a job well done.”
The couple hasn’t had to advertise to attract clientele. Indeed, Elvi Hernandez said she’s learned that in many ways a business is always advertising, even when owners may not be aware of it.
She remembers getting a cell phone call one day as her husband drove down the road in his truck, with its neatly arranged equipment in back. The couple had just finished revamping the trailer, with boxes to hold the equipment and a logo and phone number on the side.
“We got a call from someone behind him. It looks so organized, they said, we’d like you to come look at our yard. It’s happened a few times,” Elvi Hernandez said with a laugh.
“It’s how you carry yourself,” she continued. “You’re showing the business with every move you make.”
WorkSkiffWith all of the maritime companies that call Skagit County home the area has turned into a hot spot for the boat-building industry.
WorkSkiff, located in the Burlington Hill Business Park, is one smaller company worth paying attention to.
George Lundgren, a naval architect and physical engineer, heads up the small aluminum boat building company. WorkSkiff nearly doubled its employment in February and now counts 11 full-time employees.
The company, which relocated to Burlington five years ago after many years in Bothell, delivered two boats to the Department of Homeland Security at the end of last year. Each cost about $140,000.
An unsinkable boat
The company specializes in boats equipped to withstand rough seas and tough missions, whether it’s building a Navy boat for cleaning up oil spills or creating a unsinkable boat for power companies working in and around docks.
The company received an outstanding rating as a government supplier in 2004.
“When you put it together in terms of price, quality and delivery, we have an excellent reputation,” said Leslie Smith, the company’s operations manager and head of marketing.
Smith said the company focuses on creating repeat customers. And beyond that, the company enjoys working with clients to come up with just the right boat.
“We really have a lot of fun from both the design and production side, and the sales side, addressing each customer’s needs,” Smith said.
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Janicki Industries employees work on one of the company’s many high-tech projects
The Rejuvenetics team, and dog Willow.
Gouda and cheddar are stored on curing shelves at Golden Glen Creamery in Bow
Burlington-based WorkSkiff makes a variety of “unsinkable” boats like the one shown here.
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