Finally, Jewell found an opportunity to start his own company. In January 1977, at age 33, in North Carolina (the 34th state he's called home), he founded Jewell Building Systems. He had $30 to his name and Atlantic Building Systems helping him out. He set up shop as a private-label distributor of pre-engineered steel buildings -- steel-framed and clad structures that went up like erector sets. Atlantic provided him with the structures and assisted with advertising and other matters; it even designed his logo for him. Jewell sold his first building over the telephone from the utility room of his house. In his first year, his company was modestly profitable, selling $1 million worth of small agricultural buildings -- everything from backyard storage structures to small tractor sheds. His second year, talked into expanding into commercial buildings such as warehouses, even night-clubs and bingo halls, he skidded $180,000 in debt.
Jewell never understood what it meant to be a manager. It didn't matter whether he was working for someone else, as in days past, or building his own company. In Jewell's mind, there was no difference: he was still a foot soldier, doing everything, even the smallest task. "I was always up at 5, at the plant at 6, 6:30. The first one there. The last to leave. My theme was: I'll never ask a man to do what I won't do. And not only will I do it better than he will, I'll outwork him."
And it seemed there always was a strong reason to do it all himself. He experienced the problems of any company founder: his bank reneging on a promised loan or a key employee leaving to start a competing company. He was in too deep to stop, had no prospect of selling the company, and refused to give in to bankruptcy.
What was he to do? More of what worked so well in the past: relying on himself. Who could do the work as well as he? He rushed out and sold a few more buildings. He even helped build them himself. So it was that he found himself one night, the temperature dipping below freezing, desperately trying to save a just-poured concrete slab. At that moment, the loss of the $5,000 slab would have sunk Jewell Building Systems; the slab would have been its tombstone. But with bales of straw, a plastic cover, and a heater, he managed to hang onto half of it -- and his company.
"I tried to build the business on sheer force, and it worked," says Jewell, who finally saw his fortunes turning in the spring of 1983. Three months in a row he chalked up profits of $100,000 on sales of $350,000 to $400,000. He was on his way to his best fiscal year to date, racking up sales that would top $5.5 million. And that, paradoxically, is when he burned out.
He was renegotiating purchase contracts and, for the first time, his suppliers didn't ask for his personal guarantee. Don't worry about it, said one after another. "Finally it dawned on me," says Jewell. "I didn't have to give my personal guarantee any more to buy $15,000 worth of screws." He'd made it. He danced around the office as if he'd won the lottery. And then he told his secretary he felt tired. He was heading home.
It was months later, after two doctors had told him they could find nothing wrong with him, after he'd finally regained his energy, that a third doctor startled him with a ready explanation: it's simple, the doctor told him. You went through adrenaline withdrawal. You were living on adrenaline. You had it going full blast all the time, and when the pressure eased, your body finally quit producing it. You had a three-month withdrawal as surely as anyone has withdrawal from cocaine or heroin.
With his burnout came self-reflection. Where am I going in my life? Is all this worth it? What price am I willing to pay to run my business? Having been conditioned all his life to working monstrous hours, having been rewarded for relying only on himself to perform all the important chores, it wasn't easy to change. Those all-night drives and that midnight rescue of a concrete slab defined his life.
Unlike Weiss, who cut back his business, or Brodsky, who started going on vacation for a week each month, Jewell did not have a dramatic answer to his problem. He would have to fight this battle day by day. Hire some good people under him to manage his 60 employees. Delegate more. In all, operate more like an executive who owns the company than an employee who does the detail work. "The conclusion I finally came to," he says, "is that yesterday's gone. There's nothing I can do about it. I will do everything this day that I know how to do, but at the end of this day, I'm going home to play with the kids and see my wife."
Jewell swore off working Saturdays. It's a promise he's kept. Last year he took three separate vacations, one lasting 10 days, another two weeks. His workweek spans 50 hours, far fewer than before. His family is there to support him, and he's found strength through his religion.
By pulling back from day-to-day control of his company, Jewell now spends much more time on corporate strategy and goals. He's talking about buying a rolling mill to help vertically integrate his company. And he's just negotiated the $2-million purchase of several key patents, which will reverse the flow of royalty payments. Jewell expects calendar-1987 sales to reach $6.5 million and 1988 sales of around $15 to $18 million.
A year and a half ago Jewell had readied the company to go public. "If I had $250,000 on the bottom line by March 31, 1986, I was ready," he says, adding that everything looked good come the end of February. But then sales dropped in the normally strong months of March, April, May, and June.
Jewell couldn't figure out why. The "old" Everett Jewell would have panicked. "I'd have run sales specials, hired people, fired people, made major changes." This time, he didn't do any of those things.
The following month, Jewell Building Systems rebounded to record its best July figures ever. August was even stronger. And Everett Jewell hadn't worked an extra hour to make it so.
