Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 12, 1994 TAG: 9404120105
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The women, who met seven years ago while both were therapy aides at Tinker Mountain Industries, a sheltered workshop for adults with disabilities, recently formed their own company. Their Alpha Laser & Co. Inc. recycles toner cartridges and ribbons used on office copiers, fax machines and printers.
They got to know each other during breaks at Tinker and found they had a lot in common. Clark had sold Tupperware and worked in sewing factories. Johnson also had sewn in a factory, and had worked as a waitress, a domestic worker and a retail clerk.
Mainly, they'd had jobs that "paid $5 to $5.50 an hour," Clark said. "We wanted to do more with our lives."
They wanted not only to be their own boss, but also to provide jobs to people who have trouble finding work.
Beginning in early 1993, they made the rounds of agencies that counsel people who want to open businesses - including SCORE, an organization of retired executives who helps small companies; the Small Business Administration; and Total Action Against Poverty.
Within a year, they had their company organized.
In February, Clark and Johnson opened in an office on Peters Creek Road Northwest in Roanoke County, convenient to their homes. Clark lives in Buchanan, and Johnson in Fincastle.
Because they are women and Johnson is black, their business meets state guidelines to qualify as a woman- and minority-owned disadvantaged business. That status enhances their ability to sign customers, because contractors who win bids involving state and federal money are obligated to try to deal with woman- and minority-owned companies.
Clark and Johnson had done some recycling of cartridges when they worked at Tinker Mountain, but other than that, they knew little about the business until they read about Alpha Laser in Start-Ups magazine. The Ormond Beach, Fla., company sells distributorships and provides training and advice to purchasers.
Alpha Laser literature claims its offices can clean and re-ink more than 22,000 types of fabric ribbons and save companies 50 percent off the cost of buying new ribbons for business machines.
Several other companies in the area also recycle ribbons and toner cartridges, but the women contend they can be competitive in pricing and service, as well as aggressive in sales techniques.
For example, they have gained several contacts in the business community from helping to collect items for the needy at Christmas.
They are using some of the same door-to-door tactics to talk up their business services. When Clark renewed her automobile tags in November, she asked whom she should contact about cartridge and ribbon recycling for the Department of Motor Vehicles. Now Alpha Laser expects to get the statewide contract for DMV.
The women said their work volume already is ahead of the parent company's predictions for a new operation.
Clark said they've averaged reworking 20 cartridges a week, although "Alpha Laser said starting out not to expect to do but four or five a week."
The women have invested about $7,000 in the business, all from their savings. They haven't yet drawn salaries from the business but do reimburse themselves for expenses.
Johnson still has her job at Winn-Dixie Stores, and Clark sometimes stuffs envelopes for a label company. "That way, we get our gas and food money," Clark said.
They're nowhere near being able to provide jobs to others, but they have had to enlist family members' help.
Going into business for yourself "is rough," Johnson said. "You have so much mileage - when doors slam in your face, then one opens."
by CNB