Small business is no small matter in this town
June 25, 2008
As they look toward Hagerstown’s economic future, town officials aren’t exactly thinking big. Quite the contrary; they’re convinced that small business is the way to go, and they’re making a concerted effort to encourage individual entrepreneurs to locate their start-ups.
Although a small business can’t provide the quantity of local jobs and the immediate tax payoffs of a large corporation, it often brings other economic and quality-of-life benefits that the bigger firms can’t match.
For example, because many of today’s entrepreneurial efforts are technology-based or knowledge-based, they’re less likely to bring with them the environmental drawbacks of a manufacturing or industrial operation. Also, high-tech or knowledge-economy firms attract skilled, creative, professional workers – well-educated people who tend to be actively involved in their communities.
In short, one creative and committed entrepreneur can make a big difference in a comparatively small town.
Nate Logston works at his studio.Case in point: Nate Logston, co-founder of Igloo Studios – a new media design firm with offices above the local pharmacy on West Main Street. Logston, trained as an architect at Ball State University, began his professional career in 2004 with a well-known architectural firm in Richmond.
In his off hours, Logston did freelance work, using a little-known software package he had discovered while in college – called SketchUp – to create computer-generated three-dimensional drawings and models for several clients.
Logston’s use of SketchUp – pushing the capabilities of the program – soon caught the attention of officials at the company that had created the software; they offered him a job as a software trainer. Within a year, Logston had left his traditional “day job” in Richmond. He and two other young designers, both based near Los Angeles, helped develop a training curriculum and soon were crisscrossing the nation to conduct SketchUp seminars attended by thousands of architects and designers.
And then came Google.
The Internet search-engine giant, looking for a way to integrate 3-D modeling into its Google Earth mapping software, bought the @Last Software, the creators of SketchUp, and wisely kept Logston and his two California co-owners on as trainers.
“We knew this software probably better than anyone,” Logston recalls, “so we became the first certified Google SketchUp trainers.”
Igloo Team, from left to right: Nate Logston, Drew Dishman, and Jason Eales (not pictured: Jake Conrad).With Google’s muscle behind the project, Logston and his California comrades – Alex Oliver and Mike Tadros – soon found themselves busier than ever. They liked the work, largely because they were so taken by, and so involved with, the software itself. “It sounds kind of funny, I know, but we feel really passionate about SketchUp,” Logston says. “We really helped push and evangelize the application, and its success is something we’re all very proud of.”
Still, this high-tech trio could all see that the time was right to change directions, to separate from Google a little more and focus on their own company. In June 2005, they did just that, forming Igloo Studios. Google, Whirlpool and Volkswagon, are several of a growing group of clients Igloo serves from its two offices – one in the Los Angeles area, and one here in downtown Hagerstown, where Logston leads a four-person team of Web-savvy 3-D modelers.
“It’s a perfect situation for me,” Logston says. “I love the work, and I’m really comfortable here. I was born and raised here, and it’s a great place to run a company.”
Logston also appreciates the town’s entrepreneurial environment, and he’s especially grateful for the very-low-interest small-business loan he obtained from the town. The money – drawn from the town’s Economic Development Income Tax (EDIT) fund – made it possible for Logston to move his budding business outside his home and into the office on West Main.
“The EDIT funds were a wonderful resource for us,” Logston says. “With that loan, we were able to buy our equipment and get going right away. We’re paying on it gradually over five years.”
Who knows? By that time, the Hagerstown office of Igloo Studios may grow by leaps and bounds.
“The overhead here is very low compared to what my partners have to pay in L.A.,” Logston says. “We’ve actually talked about moving the whole operation here.”
These are the divisions within Igloo Studios:
http://bluemarbleproject.com/
