By Barb Henderson
On April 12, 2015, Martin Communications celebrated its 22nd anniversary. As we noted the occasion within the office, we composed a list of 22 things that some people might not know about us:
- The company began with a funding of $1,000 and a roll of stamps.
- The first office of Martin Communications was in a spare bedroom, equipped with a second-hand kitchen table with one broken leg, a dining room chair and a third-hand computer that worked with DOS.
- The second office was a 400-square-foot apartment above a hair salon—which made for some interesting fumes on perm day for the locals.
- It was in this office that Barb began her career at Martin Communications. She and Tom shared the one desk, the one chair, the one computer and the one phone.
- We moved into our third office in 2006, with the idea we would never outgrow the building.
- We moved into our fourth and current office building in 2013, which tripled the office space from the previous location.
- To provide some perspective on the difference in office size, our former conference room table is now our kitchen table.
- In 2009, we ranked 28th among the region’s Top 50 Fastest Growing Companies as recognized by the Central Pennsylvania Business Journal.
- The company currently has 11 employees on staff, with a combined 234 years of advertising experience!
- Martin Communications was once approached to undertake a publicity campaign for an individual, rather than a company. He needed to improve his public image. The problem? He was going to jail the next day. We declined.
- Some of our staff have had odd jobs before joining our team. These include: parking buses, working as a mechanic (two of us), type-setting book manuscripts, parking cars at a funeral home, working in a suitcase factory, singing in a wine-tasting room and digging a grave.
- Some people believe we are all crazy and that our current jobs are just as odd as those mentioned in #11. We don’t necessarily disagree.
- When the ABC Network prime time program Extreme Makeover—Home Edition worked their magic for a family in Lewisberry, Martin Communications handled the advertising and publicity, including managing media on-site through their eight-day project. In those eight days, between being at work in the office and on-site in Lewisberry, Tom and Barb logged a total of 210 hours.
- Unlike most businesses during the recession, Martin Communications grew at its fastest pace during that time.
- Our youngest employee is the same age as the company.
- We travel from as close as 4.2 miles to get to the office each day or as far as 50 miles.
- We’ve each met some interesting celebrities, including John Cappelletti, André the Giant, Whitey Ford, Dana Sensenig, John Denver, Ricky Skaggs, Charlie Daniels, Walt Disney, Stephen King, Charles Barkley, Julius Erving, most of Maroon 5, Rocco DiSpirito, Michael Landon and Ricky Nelson.
- One of the most interesting celebrity encounters was one person meeting Sean Connery—when they were both nude. You’ll need to ask to hear the story.
- When our office was in New Cumberland, Tom liked to jog in New Cumberland Borough Park. One day, two employees, dressed up in full-body chicken outfits, chased him and ran with him in the park. The parents of the kids playing baseball didn’t even seem to notice.
- While writing a radio commercial for a client, we wanted to mock competitors’ jingles, so we asked Michael Parks to sing the jingle, including “…don’t buy from us and you’ll smell like asparagus.”
- The predecessor to Martin Communications occurred 16 years earlier. It was a two-man shop with the moniker J.T. Ludlow. It had a very short life of about one year.
- At all times, you can find a bottle of champagne chilling in the office refrigerator. Why? Because you just never know when there will be something to celebrate. Maybe we should open it today.