New-era entrepreneur links off-shore manufacturing with Pittsburg home

By HUDSON OLD
Journal Publisher

PITTSBURG--It's Monday morning at sumptuous Lampe Avenue's less-than-presumptuous global headquarters, upstairs above the town's landmark D.H. Abernathy building. Just back from a decadent week-long break skiing the Rockies, the CEO bounds easily up the old wooden stair case, taking the top two steps in a single spring. His eagerness is a tangible thing, the kind of enthusiasm in the face of a kid who's had time to convert day dreams to specific tasks, what to do next in the tree house.

But make no mistake - Michael Mayben skipped his tree-house building stage, just as he skipped the chance for a summer break between his sophomore and junior years at Pittsburg High, opting instead for classes at the community college that allowed him to graduate a year ahead of his peers.

It would be fair to say that 24-year-old Michael Mayben skipped childhood, it he hadn't been having so much fun taking on life as an adult for the past dozen years, at least when it come to business.

Even then, he says, "I wanted to broaden my horizons. I wanted a bigger world."

He's got it, and at 24, he's brought it home to Pittsburg.

"I couldn't have been born at a better time," he said. "No matter where you are, no matter what place you want to call home, technology today can bring the world to your doorstep."

In May, for the second time since graduating the University of Texas with a bachelors in business administration and finance, he walked off from a career-track job, launching his third sole proprietorship.

Timing was everything.

In six weeks time he pulled together an off-shore manufacturing firm, a Fort Worth warehousing business, a home-town based distribution center, sales points and a marketing plan.

In July, he launched Lampe Avenue at the Dallas World Trade Center, selling a line of "Fine fragrancing lampes and fuels." A week later, he came home with 50-odd new accounts on the books, retailers ranging from Hallmark to high-end boutiques.

Seven months later, Lampe Avenue was pushing 400 accounts.

The "lampe" looks something like grandma's crystal. Lampe Avenue, says one promo, is "Where home fragrance meets home decor." Light it, let it burn a couple of minutes, blow it out, place the vented crown over the stone burner and relax as the air is transformed in your choice of scents.

From the time he punched his first time clock as a soda jerk at Taylor Drug, he's been dreaming ahead - thinking ahead, saving, investing, pushing open doors of his own creation.

"A month after I went to work at the soda fountain, I was running it on Saturdays," he said. That was in the seventh grade.

With encouragement from his grandfather, car dealer Harvey Hamm, in the eighth grade, Michael bought his first car, the neighbor's Cadillac. Weeks later, he turned it for a smooth $1,000 profit. He sunk the profit into his first business, The Double M Company. Linking with a private label, he packaged a selection of gourmet foods and dressings.

Renting space at Canton's Trade Days, he launched his first vision before he was driving.

Three years later he sold his company at a profit when he moved to Austin, selecting the University of Texas business school for an obvious reason. It's one of the top five in the country, he said.

Degree in hand, he came home to East Texas, going to work as a banker in neighboring Mt. Pleasant.

"I loved everything about it but being confined," he said. While at the bank, he opened Mayben Square, selling antiques and reproductions from a booth in a local antique store and hiring help to set up shop in Canton once a month.

Heating multiple irons in a mixed business fire came naturally.

"All my life, I've watched my dad," he said. "Whatever he's needed to do to prosper on Main Street, he's done it."

His great grandfather was a Pittsburg builder. His grandfather worked in a local bottling company. In the waning days of the era of the sole proprietorship department store, his father went to work in W.L. Garrett's Pittsburg storefront when it tapped a regional market. Later, he bought the business. He expanded in the 1980's, buying stores in Mt. Pleasant, Gilmer and Sulphur Springs. Still pumping profits into enterprise, in the early 1980's he bought Ben Brown's Menswear; in the 1990's he bought his present storefront at 103 Quitman and opened Mayben's Menswear.

From concept to reality, Michael Mayben pulled together manufacturing, warehousing and distribution resources, designed logos, packaging and marketing plans, then pulled off the launch of Lampe Avenue in six weeks. In less than a year, the company has gone from zero to 60 manufacturing reps in a half-dozen regional markets and at present has some 400 retailers ranging from Hallmark to high-end boutiques.

"I've watched him change with changing times," Michael said. "When business attire that was the norm - and the anchor of his retailing - started its downhill slide, he kept thinking of ways to expand his market and to move into new ventures." Paul R. Mayben began buying real estate. He added gifts and home decor items to his retail store front, then jewelry and most recently, ladies appearal.

"What I've learned from my dad is that if you're determined to make it happen and you develop a business plan, you can do it," Michael said. "It's that combination of work and imagination."

A retired teacher now working in the family business, his mom Melinda nurtured Michael's bold business nature.

"Think out your dream, take a risk and go for it," he said. "Otherwise, you're setting yourself up to regret what might have been. By example and instruction, my parents put me on a path so that I'll never allow myself to live with that lament."

With Mayben Square on the move, he left banking for work in sales, traveling East Texas as a manufacturers' rep. With Mayben Square's bottom line on a steady climb, he bought the storefront adjacent to Mayben's Menswear, the other half of the turn-of-the-century D.H. Abernathy building.

Beyond investment, it had romantic appeal.

"Pittsburg's home," Michael said.

Joining with local businessman Gary Foster, Michael, his brother Mitchell and their father formed Pittsburg Legacy Group, Inc. and invested in a hundred-acre tract east of town, envisioning a new residential development. Michael and Mitchell began construction of spec homes even before opening phase one, 35 home sites, some nestled along the private lake at Legacy Park, billed as "Pittsburg's premier residential development."

As a traveling sales rep, his exposure to multiple retailers in a broader region was a fertile ground for his growing ideas about the Lampe Avenue line.

He timed his move to coincide with a show at the Dallas World Trade Center.

Lampe Avenue's first sales came from a single display in a temporary showroom. Today, the line has 60 sales reps in showrooms in Dallas, Atlanta, Kansas City, Chicago and Minneapolis.

As fate would have it, back home in Pittsburg he happened upon a kindred spirit.

It's been years since Kenya Schane left Pittsburg. With a knack for design, she graduated a self-described school of "hard knocks," ultimately handling million dollar budgets as a designer and vendor providing anything needed in the hotel and restaurant industry. Her success presented one problem.

Because she worked for a family friend, Kenya Schane's boss turned her down the first time she said she was ready to step in on the ground floor of Lampe Avenue. "So I quit," she said, and a new door opened.

"I lived in Houston," she said, and raising a son brought her to focus on that issue.

Beyond the excitement of business and creative flares, Kenya shares with Michael an appreciation for Pittsburg.

"I think you have to leave home to realize how important, what an advantage small town life is when you're growing up," she said. "I want my son to have what I had here - the family and friends, the village support system."

When she learned about Michael's Lampe Avenue launch, she offered to help.

"He wouldn't hire me because I was working for an old family friend of his," she said. So she did the only reasonable thing. "I quit."

Just back from the ski slopes, his longest break from business in two years, before the chief executive officer who never built tree houses could settle in behind his leather inlaid, English oak desk, Kenya was seated across from him, notes in hand, bringing him up to speed.

Work on the highway on the east side of town was re-routing traffic, a detour that was going to interfere with contractors working on the D.H. Abernathy building.

"So what are we doing?"

"Postponing, for the moment."

"Got the highway department schedule?"

"Got the call in."

"Good. What else?"

"Want your coke first?"

"Sure," said the CEO, sitting back, smiling as he thought.