Funny they’re in Greenville and doing work for Ryobi. Couple of guys I met back in ’05 at a Dave Wood Agency Management Roundtable camp, Jamie and Bill, ran a shop out of Greenville called Fuel. Built their business doing really nice work for high-end developments but grew their shop designing all the packaging for Ryobi and later Rigid Tools. Great guys, really nice people, sharpest minds in the room and young enough to just be loving what they were doing and not be caught up in all that ad agency attitude. I think Jamie was in his late 20′s when I met him. I was blown away at what a student he was of salesmanship and how he went out of his way to seek out mentors in sales techniques and learn from them-the last thing you would expect from a young designer. The kicker was that he grew up rebuilding classic Corvettes with his dad and easily could have pursued that career for a living-so needless to say I was enamored to meet another left brain/right brain guy like myself-especially someone who was running a much more accomplished design studio than I, was a much better mechanic, and 10 years younger than me. Anyway, those guys from Fuel first put Greenville on my radar screen and the more I checked out the town, the more I was impressed with what a great community they have there. Knowing that, I can see why a shop like BOF can flourish there-Greenville to me represents all that’s good about the beautiful south.

Thanks again for the name drop and kudos on another great article.

Alan

Funny they’re in Greenville and doing work for Ryobi. Couple of guys I met back in ’05 at a Dave Wood Agency Management Roundtable camp, Jamie and Bill, ran a shop out of Greenville called Fuel. Built their business doing really nice work for high-end developments but grew their shop designing all the packaging for Ryobi and later Rigid Tools. Great guys, really nice people, sharpest minds in the room and young enough to just be loving what they were doing and not be caught up in all that ad agency attitude. I think Jamie was in his late 20′s when I met him. I was blown away at what a student he was of salesmanship and how he went out of his way to seek out mentors in sales techniques and learn from them-the last thing you would expect from a young designer. The kicker was that he grew up rebuilding classic Corvettes with his dad and easily could have pursued that career for a living-so needless to say I was enamored to meet another left brain/right brain guy like myself-especially someone who was running a much more accomplished design studio than I, was a much better mechanic, and 10 years younger than me. Anyway, those guys from Fuel first put Greenville on my radar screen and the more I checked out the town, the more I was impressed with what a great community they have there. Knowing that, I can see why a shop like BOF can flourish there-Greenville to me represents all that’s good about the beautiful south.

Thanks again for the name drop and kudos on another great article.

Alan