At the heart of the malaise was the lowly status of Artkraft's highly skilled workers. "My dad was weak there. He was aloof," recalls Tama. "He treated labor as just another commodity." Tama and Jonathan knew that had to change. They addressed the work force early in the week. "We generously gave respect to our workers," says Tama. "Our aim was to see this as a new beginning, and we were not going to dwell on the past. With their help, the business would prosper, and everyone would become wealthy working for Artkraft." The urge to court the worker was, of course, a throwback to Jake, whom many of the workers remembered fondly.
The second nod to Jake came in the form of the company embracing advanced technology -- using the best tools it could get its hands on. Jonathan started bringing computers into the office and announced pointedly, "People will learn how to use these things or else." The company subsequently sent workers to school for computer training. Employees not interested in such efforts at self-improvement were let go.
The company has since invested in a lot of computer technology, primarily computer-aided design and manufacturing. That investment, Jonathan believes, has given the work force and management a new and common language. "We have project meetings all the time now. Everyone sits down together and figures out the best way to do a job," he says. "We are now more diverse and more flexible."
Those qualities derive from another key decision Tama and Jonathan made soon after their father's death. Knowing the world would no longer just beat a path to Artkraft's door, the company made three strategic acquisitions to complement its strengths and make it a more adroit player in the market.
It bought West Side Neon, which makes smaller signs than Artkraft does -- signs for elevators and automatic teller machines, for example. Those are high-volume, garden-variety jobs that can help smooth out the business cycles, as Artkraft, with its big display signs, had grown reliant on the very cyclical commercial-real-estate market in New York City.
It bought Calvano Erectors, the premier sign-hanging and -rigging company in New York City. The merits of that acquisition are obvious. The Starrs knew Calvano to be the best company of its kind. Its equipment was up-to-date. The embarrassment of Artkraft trucks breaking down in Manhattan gridlock would belong to the past.
Third, it bought another local sign company called Electronic Sign Products, which makes scoreboards that use changeable information displays such as light-emitting diodes, light bulbs, and flip disks to make signs, such as the digitized moving signs that banks display in their windows. That acquisition reflected an awareness that the sign industry was moving fast toward electronics.
In making those purchases, Artkraft borrowed money -- something Mel was loath to do. But the risk was worth it because they could see those acquisitions paying larger dividends than just broadening the company's repertoire. They turned Artkraft into a professionally managed corporation, as each of the new companies came with their owners' expertise.
Those were people who, like the Starrs, had grown up with their companies. They knew their businesses well. Whey they joined Artkraft, they retained much of the power to run those businesses as they always had. The effect was to broaden the knowledge base at Artkraft and increase the sharing of power. A company that for half a century had been run by a strong-willed individual believing in his hunches now had half a dozen managers, each bringing knowledge and experience to the business.
* * *
Family-business consultant Dennis Jaffe believes that for a family business to prosper from one generation to the next these days, each succeeding generation must understand that there is an almost exponential increase in the expertise required to run that business. It is faced with a task of almost entrepreneurial dimension. "Each generation really has to create a new basic business," he says.
That is what Tama and Jonathan Starr have set out to do, as is demonstrated most tangibly by their curious partnership. It is late on a weekday afternoon, and Tama is sitting at her desk, which abuts her brother's. Between them sits a shared computer. She drags on a Camel, picks up a piece of paper, and puzzles over its scrawl of numbers.
"Jonathan made a deal yesterday. I'm not sure what this means. I have to get this written in contract form by the end of the day." The moment is not without irony. Jonathan's scrawl bemuses her. Half the time when Mel did this, it drove her up the wall. The difference, of course, is that she has faith in Jonathan's ability to work the numbers. She knows he has Jake's head for business.
She is also reassured by the awareness that Jonathan has what she doesn't and vice versa. He is good at analyzing costs. He loves machinery, abhors paper, and barely tolerates small talk. She delights in reading the fine print on contracts, in the give-and-take of negotiation. She likes to talk.
Invoking the ghosts in Artkraft's past, Jonathan conjures up absolutes -- extremes. "My grandfather demanded perfection. My father demanded adherence to his own whims," he says. That has given way to the forces of moderation.
"The business had never been run as a partnership with two equal partners," says Tama with a note of wonder in her voice. "That means you have to let go of enough ego to yield to the other person." The sense you get about this company is one of balance. Peace has broken out. In the old days, says Tama, Artkraft was a place "where people did a lot of yelling." Things got done by brute force. That is no longer the style.
Yet there is an homage to the past and all its pyrotechnic genius. You see it on the office walls hung with old framed photos of Times Square ablaze at night. You hear it in the oft-invoked ghosts of Jake and Mel and the small, reverential moments that pay homage to those who came before. Whenever Tama gets into a cab in midtown Manhattan, she asks, as though guided by family spirits, to be detoured through Times Square. Just to look. Just to make sure all is well. "I know every inch of it so intimately," she remarks. "I can name every address and tell you what sign is on that building. Going through Times Square always gives me a tremendous thrill, knowing that we've had something to do with this little, glittering corner of the universe."
