Jungle outpost business
prospers in win, win situation
Cottage industry begins in a mud-hut village
By Anne Straub
Brevard Technical Journal
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The photograph shows a simple work bench topped by a copy machine, tools and toner cartridge. Beneath the bench are boxes of empty, used cartridges.
It's a static image and it's not even framed. But to Hurston, the photo represents the birth of a business with potential to prosper, help families and support good works.
Hurston shot the picture eight years ago in Haiti, where he was serving as a Christian missionary. He and his wife, a nurse, helped run a school, operate a feeding program, offer nutrition and health services and engage in evangelism. Hurston, a pilot, also participated in hurricane relief and other transportation missions.
But it's the mundane things that make the more important accomplishments possible. And in the middle of the Haitian jungle, the outpost's well-used copier was about to run out of toner.
A new toner cartridge in Haiti cost about $250 - an impossible sum. Shipping one from the United States, even if Hurston could wait that long, was still pricey, at $140.
He researched the problem and learned about a company that sold a $599 kit that would enable him to refill cartridges himself. He decided to make the investment, and received a kit including a high-filter vacuum cleaner and special tools to work on the cartridge. He put the instructional tape into the video projector normally used to show the evangelistic "Jesus" film, and took four pages of notes.
Then he got to work. "I spit and sputtered and probably cussed a little," Hurston remembered. The he put the refilled cartridge back into the machine. It printed. "It was like a miracle."
Hurston got on the two-radio and called a larger nearby mission to report his success. Word apparently spread. Early the next morning, he awoke when he heard his dog barking at someone outside the mission office. When he opened the front door, he found a large box of empty cartridges on the front porch.
He took them to the work bench, realizing the significance of the moment enough to take the picture. He had found himself with a cottage industry in what he describes as a real mud-hut village in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.
Hurston charged $50 for a refilled cartridge, clearing $40 to support his family - a godsend for missionaries who often live on donations. He traded cartridges for fuel, for hotel rooms for guests, and even for eggs needed for the bakery the mission ran.
He continued to operate the business until his wife,
Cindy, began having complications with a pregnancy. After an emergency
evacuation, she had the baby at a Central Florida hospital. The child,
their seventh - the Hurstons also adopted several Haitian children - was
treated for cardiac and respiratory distress.
"At that point, Cindy and I realized we were not going
back to the mission field," Hurston said. The family had been staying
with friends in North Brevard County, and so Hurston began investigating
launching his business on the Space Coast.
The result is Cartridge Source of America, a Titusville
firm that employs 25 and forecasts annual revenue of $1.2 million to $1.5
million this year.
That revenue represents a doubling from last year because
of a contract with United Space Alliance at Kennedy and Johnson space
centers. The company matched last year's revenues by June 2003.
CSA's revenue bar chart shows steady increases since
its start in January 1998, and the company has been profitable since 1999.
Hurston doesn't see the success as just numbers. "This really almost brings
tears to my eyes," he said, looking at the firm's progress.
He continues to see God's guidance in the building of
the company, such as when CSA missed the opportunity to go public and
avoided the fate of other small over-the-counter stocks that folded, and
when retired NASA engineers became available to lend their expertise to
the company's processing structure.
The company is looking at expanding into a new, larger
plant to accommodate growth from an added business source: In addition
to refilling toner cartridges, the company is starting to refurbish and
sell printers.
Some of CSA's cartridges are sold through office products
giant Boise Cascade. Boise hooked up with CSA after Boise clients at NASA
and the U.S. postal system suggested an alliance to their supplier.
That's concrete evidence of CSA's good relationship with
its government customers, said Mark Heuer, federal business manager for
Boise Cascade Office Products. That, along with the high quality of the
company's product, are key to CSA's success, he said.
Heuer, who also teaches at George Washington University
in Washington, D.C., has worked with Hurston as a guest lecturer in his
classes. The entrepreneur demonstrates to the students how economic success
can be used to support social good in a community, Heuer said.
CSA works closely with Brevard Job Link to provide employment,
and Hurston continues to participate in natural disaster relief and contribute
to other charitable causes.
"He has developed a reputation for supporting the community,"
Heuer said of Hurston. "By doing that he develops a reputation for trustworthiness.
We want to work with someone we can trust."
Hurston, 52, points to what he describes as a dramatic
conversion at age 21 as a defining moment of his life. The years before
were marked by struggle: He left a difficult home life at age 13 and supported
himself through high school. After his religious awakening, he worked
for an evangelist in his home state of Louisiana until sensing a clear
call to minister in Haiti.
Today, Hurston plans to grow the business beyond the
proposed 12,000-square-foot Titusville plant. He sees multiple plants
around the country and overseas, as well as distribution centers in the
Caribbean.
"I started this company in one of the hardest places
on earth. If I can make it work there, I can make it work anywhere," he
said.
On the Web: www.cartridgesourceamerica.com
"It was a win-win-win-win situation. Everybody won," Hurston said. "I wasn't
greedy, and it saved people a fortune."
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