I was a senior in college and had to go to night school…I got into sales…I was selling business phone systems…I sat in the office and over a two week period I watched a billboard – a 14 by 48 billboard – being constructed in the parking lot right in the front of my window.  And I just kept thinking “what is that all about…once the logo went up I saw it was for 3M National Advertising…I called on them and sold them a phone system and six months into the sale they asked me to join their company.

What it means to be green

How we think when we’re actually doing business is what makes us green.  I’ll give you some examples…We’ve built many new signs in Chicago…All of our steel is 100% recycled…sometimes is has taken calisthenics to get it sourced…we also do the same thing for the digital faces…we can spec the actual plastic panels before they get the displays in them to be 100% recycled resin…When we start operating the sign we take the sustainability factor even further.  For instance all of our signs whether they’re static or LED’s or digital are operated on wind and solar energy, 100%…metal halide lamps, these are horrible for our environment.  They draw so much power…it’s a no brainer…disposing an LED lamp is so much easier and friendlier to the earth than disposing of these old metal halide lamps which have mercury in them and chemicals…We always spec eco-flex.  It’s thinner.  There’s no PVC in there…It does not last as long.  If you have an annual contract eco-flex is not going to be the product for you unless they plan on changing it every 90-120 days..The average contract in Chicago now is under three months which lends itself to using eco-flex.…On our real estate we can eliminate 80% of the paper that we do but because of statutorial requirements it’s not feasible to go 100% paperless.  On the sales side…we were able to go 100% paperless and now that’s become very simple for us.  Our sales people are on the road or sitting in front of customers…most of them are use their company ipad.  We have an operating platform from Broadsign…it runs the business from front end to back end.  It does everything for us.  It even sends out rent checks…Our sales people are able to use that platform, sit in front of a customer, do their presentation…and if they walk out of their without an order they leave behind a recycled USB drive with everything that they just presented to the client.  So no paper has been exchanged…Should the customer want to go to contract through our Broadsign system we’re able to immediately go right to a contract, show it on the ipad and the customer is able to sign it with their finger…Everybody’s desk is clean…You’re so much more organized…