Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 29, 1993 TAG: 9305290150
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Hampton Corp., his Rocky Mount computer assembly firm, is geared for a quick turnaround with custom orders and repairs.
The company's name is Furrow's middle name. It has 15 employees in an 18,000-square-foot industrial park shop in Rocky Mount and three sales representatives in Northern Virginia.
Furrow's goal is $10 million in sales this year from a mix that's 80 percent federal contracts and 20 percent commercial sales, plus state and local government business. Given another year, he projects that Hampton will reach $30 million in sales and a work force of 25.
The computer business was a result of a disability that required Furrow to get out of a sales job. From a birth defect, he lost both legs and "I wanted something that I could do sitting down, using my head and not my legs."
After studying at the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University, he conducted computer training for federal employees and workers at CSX Corp. and the James River Corp., both Richmond-based.
His research for a college paper on personal computers led him to conclude that many people don't know how to use their own PCs. This led him to become a subcontractor, and he won training contracts for the Navy and Air Force.
He set up a marketing company and subcontracted the manufacturing, "but we couldn't get the quality control we needed" from a California company, he said. So he came home to Rocky Mount in November.
In Franklin County, he found the work ethic "was so much better - labor costs are down and pay is decent."
Furrow has to cope with the irregularity of government contracts. They'll order 1,000 PCs in 30 days "and you'll work your rear end off and [then] there won't be another order for three or four months," he said.
The company tries "to be able to handle large government orders and at the same time keep people busy at commercial work." Also causing problems for the start-up firm is a shortage of components, the recession and the flat recovery.
In addition to custom sales, Hampton acts as "a traffic cop" to support computer users across 21 time zones around the world, Furrow said.
Working by telephone, he determines if a computer needs repairs, diagnoses the problem, then ships parts to fix it. Through an agreement with a large maintenance company, he dispatches repair personnel to fix machines from Japan to Germany.
Furrow claims to be able to arrange repairs on six continents, repairing a machine the day after notice of malfunction. When he received a call about computer trouble at an Army base in Germany, he sent a repairman to the scene within 24 hours.
For regional problems, Furrow tries to ship the components within three hours.
One customer is John Cowlbeck, a Bedford computer consultant who helps companies find what they need. He said he can tell Furrow what a customer wants and his shop "usually gets it done in 24 hours." Hampton will "build what you want at an incredibly good price . . . with low overhead. They try to keep a number of machines with components ready to assemble," he said.
Jim Barefoot, chief financial officer for Coleman-Adams Construction Co. at Forest, said Hampton Corp. did "a first-class job of assembly" on computers he ordered.
Furrow sees a niche for his cottage industry. "You're not important to IBM, but you are to me. . . . I'll see you in church and the community," he said.
by CNB