A Chat with John Economaki, Founder and President, Bridge City Tool Works

Simultaneously, in 1983 they had the first of the consumer woodworking shows in the country. That was in Chicago, which I didn't go to. But the second one was in Pasadena, and I did go to that one. At that time, we were in business for maybe five months. I sat down there at a table and just took orders. I took about $6,000 worth of orders at that first show, and I just decided at the time, this was a great business and I needed to focus all my energy on it. My wife worked at the time, and I wasn't taking any money out, and we went our first year and made $30,000 worth of sales in 1984. And then we went to $100,000 in 1985, $600,000 in 1986, $1.2 million in 1987, $3.2 million in 1988. We just kept going up and up.