The Stubborn Eventually Prosper

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Breathe. Think. Adjust.

The emergency infusion would make the Belarussians happy -- or at least, a little less discontented -- and would keep TMS alive to fight another day. But survival meant stripping down to final, life-raft mode. Gary decided to rebuild one last time. Since his own, creative business model had proved to be out of reach, he decided to put his more pragmatic daughter in charge and demoted himself to vice president. Michele Holman is as detail-oriented as Gary is impetuous, and besides, putting the company in her name also qualified TMS for minority-owned business credit.

Michele soon had TMS looking at smaller markets and doing hard analysis. She did what had to be done, even if it was putting fire-smothering blankets in a cute, ceramic fireplug for stovetop use and selling them for 20 bucks at retail stores. Little hits like this wouldn't keep TMS alive for long, Gary realized, but it gave him oxygen to consider where he stood.

He'd made mistakes, and he'd disappointed some people, and he'd been humbled. (It was not a proud moment when he started reaching out blindly on the Internet, posting message-in-a-bottle pleas: "New Consumer Fire Safety Product! Start-up company looking for angel investors.") There were plenty of times he wondered why he hadn't taken Stephen Durso's money -- "or sat in some other rich company's lap." But on the whole, he still liked his product. And he liked his chances.

When you're right, you're right

On a cemetery-gray December day, Gary is standing against the bare white wall of his storage room in Sparks, Nev., his road-worn face wrapped around a cigarette, looking like he's ready for a blindfold and a firing squad.

Instead, he grabs a blowtorch and cracks a huge grin. "Check this baby out!" he exults, sparking the torch and letting the flame tear at a swath of milky-white, almost linenlike quartz fabric. Minutes go by, but the flame could be a penlight beam -- the cloth doesn't singe, smoke, or even discolor. "That's some hot s--- , don't you think?" Gary asks, almost giddily.

All along, Gary had preached that the key to marketing Russian silica was putting it in places where American products simply wouldn't work. "It was all about new applications," he says gleefully. "I knew if I could just get people to understand how amazing these fabrics are, they'd find applications I never dreamed of."

He saw occasional signs that he was making headway, such as when a Maryland doctor hunted Gary down in 1997 because he wanted to design a fireproof stretcher for emergency medical teams. In December 2002, however, Gary finally landed the big one. It took a little conniving -- would Gary have it any other way? -- but the payoff was not only big, but steady and potentially unlimited. In other words, exactly what he had predicted 10 years earlier in those first, fantasy-flushed moments after he'd laid his hands on the miracle fabric. Victory -- it was so sweet, and so infuriating. He felt like yanking open his office door and shouting eastward at the top of his Marlboro-raspy lungs, toward Todd in Philly and Mark in St. Petersburg and every doubter in between: "Gary Teague knows his s---!"

Of course, the only answer he'd get would be an echo from the Nevada desert, which Gary had to admit would probably sound a lot like, "What took you so long?"

And, literally, it couldn't have taken any longer. Gary had heard that a certain federal agency was searching for fireproof material. He'd submitted a proposal. Knowing the kind of "Buy American" sentiment that could scuttle any government-financed deal, he decided to process his material through a U.S.-based company and keep its Belarussian roots a secret. Still, the selection process took three months...six months...more time than TMS had. On Monday, he had decided to file for Chapter 7 at the end of the week.

He got the call he was waiting for on Tuesday: TMS had won an five-year contract for $6 million in annual sales. At that point, Gary felt compelled to come clean about his factories, but the Feds no longer cared: They were so thrilled with the miracle fabric that they didn't care where it came from (although Gary still refuses to identify the agency). Within weeks, the contract amount was doubled, then tripled, to $18 million.

Months later, the TMS trio and their Belarussian partners would get together to celebrate. They would meet in the United States, at a nice hotel in the Midwest. The toasts would be as raucous as they had been 10 years earlier, the drinking as crazed and competitive, but Todd would notice that this time, the Belarus factory director who once couldn't afford to turn on all his lights was carrying the latest, lozenge-shaped Motorola. Todd's own joy would be tempered by a twinge of regret; he wouldn't get as rich from the deal as he'd hoped, since he'd voluntarily reduced his share of the business a few years earlier. He'd gone from full partner to consultant and shareholder.

But on this December morning, that celebration is yet to come. Now, as Gary goofs around with the blowtorch, Michele comes through the door, waving an envelope.

"Is that...?" Gary asks.

"Yup, we got the check!" she says, handing over the very first installment of their new lease on financial life. But first, Gary carefully shuts off the flame.

Christopher McDougall's work has appeared in Philadelphia and The New York Times Magazine.

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