Homegrown Firms Thrive in Asheville’s Business-Friendly Climate
arts, blackbird frame & art, bryson street, business, carol rovello, historic biltmore village, jesse cunningham, john horrocks, strategic workplace solutions,
What do a bowling ball, a Lava lamp, Bob Dylan harmonicas, drive-in movie speakers and a piece of the Berlin Wall have in common?
They’ve all been framed in custom shadowboxes by BlackBird Frame & Art, located near Asheville’s Historic Biltmore Village.
There has been the occasional Cezanne and Picasso, too, as well as artwork by 4-year-olds whose parents see them as the next Cezanne or Picasso.
“Our aim is to provide a really high level of customer service and quality,” says John Horrocks, who owns BlackBird with his wife, Pat. “We want every person who comes in here to walk out happy.”
The Horrocks, who moved to Asheville from Orlando, Fla., in 2002, are an example of industrious business owners who aren’t Asheville natives but now can’t imagine living anywhere else.
Carol Rovello is another transplanted business owner. Her belief that Asheville is a great place to do business convinced her to launch Strategic Workplace Solutions in January 2006.
Rovello spent 16 years as a human-relations consultant before closing her business and moving to Asheville. After a stint with Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, she stepped out on her own again – and with gratifying results.
“It’s been an interesting history that I’ve had my hand in all these years, and I love the work that we do,” she says, referring to Strategic Workplace Solutions.
That work includes serving as a small company’s human-resources professional, crafting employee handbooks, coaching executives, studying compensation, and facilitating professional development training.
It’s probably no coincidence that Strategic Workplace Solutions has an attractive and professional Web site, designed by another business owner who now calls Asheville home.
In 1993, Totsie Marine and her husband, Winn King, moved from Atlanta to Asheville, and three years later, her Web-site design studio, www.totsie.com, was born.
“1996 was very early in the Web world, but my husband said it was going to be a good idea,” Marine recalls. She studied Web design during the early-morning hours and at night while holding down a full-time job.
“It was foresight on my husband’s part and perseverance on my part,” she says. “A year and a half ago, I got really smart and hired my husband.”
King has moved www.totsie.com into rarified Web air with the use of Plone, a content-management system that allows site owners to update their sites themselves.
Joe Scott understands the decision to leave Atlanta for Asheville – he did the same thing in 2003.
Scott owns IntelliSound, which produces telephone music and recorded messages for callers to enjoy while they’re on hold with a medical practice, clinic or hospital.
“This is an excellent opportunity to educate and inform their audience about who they are and why people need to be entrusting them with their health care,” he explains.
IntelliSound employs voice talent from Los Angeles to Boston and taps into a New York music library. With eight employees plus part-time staff, IntelliSound has more than 700 clients across the country.
Yet another Atlanta transplant is Jim Oliver, the founder of AvL Technologies. An engineer and product designer, Oliver says Asheville is the perfect venue for high-technology ventures such as his.
He launched AvL in 1994 to build a lightweight positioner for a specific client’s antennas. By 1998, Oliver was ahead of the curve with his compact design, when digital technology took the stage and news-gathering vans sported satellite antennas for live feeds.
Today, AvL boasts 120 employees, and its systems are positioning satellite antennas across the globe.
“Our most prestigious customer is the White House,” Oliver says, “ and they get to pick the best.”
Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald
Photo by Ian Curcio
