(Note: This post is part of a series called “Entrepreneurs of Waco.”  The series is collaboration between the McLennan Small Business Development Center (SBDC), the Professional Writing program at Baylor University, and Act Locally Waco.  The McLennan Small Business Development Center offers technical assistance, business mentoring, training, and resources for all stages of small business. For more information, visit their website: www.mccsbdc.com.  To see all the posts in this series, click here: Entrepreneurs of Waco.  – ABT)

By Payten Arthur

The Waco Hippodrome is a historic gem on the corner of Austin Avenue and 8th street. The distinctly shaped, bright red sign declaring the building the “WACO HIPPODROME” shines bright in the night.  The interior of the theatre has maintained many features that remind guests of the building’s history. The red velvet curtains at the entrance to the theatres, the muted greens and reds of the carpet in the lobby, the brass candelabra sconces lining the aisles, the detailed lattice of gold, plaster rosettes that climb the walls and cover the ceiling, all whisper the stories of years gone by.

The Waco Hippodrome opened in 1914 as a vaudeville theatre, and has survived a fire and many changes in management. Since the late 1970’s the theatre has struggled to stay open. Many have tried to bring the Hippodrome back to its former glory, but were unsuccessful. Shane Turner and his brother, Cody purchased the Hippodrome in 2012. After a two-year renovation that involved adding a mezzanine level restaurant, they opened the Hippodrome’s doors to the public once again. Now the theatre is a versatile venue for seeing a film, having a meal, watching live theatre and music performances, and hosting charity events.

Shane Turner is a man who follows his heart. He describes this as “going with the flow” and has followed this practice throughout his life. He never planned on being an entrepreneur. He studied political science and had plans to become a lawyer. He even took the LSAT, but decided soon after that his heart wasn’t in legal work. Instead, he went into business with his brother, Cody. Their parents were entrepreneurs in construction, so it was natural for the Turner Brothers to go into real estate. The brothers have been developing properties in Waco for years. In those years, Shane has developed a love for building up and improving Waco.

Shane and his brother have found success in real estate.  They own several multifamily properties and loft condominiums in the Waco area, including Tinsley Place and the Altura Luxury Lofts that are currently being constructed. But, the Hippodrome is different from those other properties. Why would they choose to purchase a movie theatre, especially one that has been sitting unused for years?  The Hippodrome’s history of unsuccessful runs was surely not encouraging for potential business owners. Also, Shane had no experience running a movie theatre and restaurant. He has had to learn how to deal with studios and musicians and how to face the many challenges of running a restaurant, like employee turnover and understaffing. Money wasn’t the motivation. Shane’s passion to develop downtown Waco is what guided him to take on the Hippodrome. “We did the Hippodrome to help promote downtown. We didn’t walk into the Hippodrome expecting to be in the black the first month.”

The transformation Shane Turner desires is more than just seeing the downtown area fill with businesses. He loves the Waco community. “In Waco, people are easy to get along with. Some communities are closed off and they don’t want to share the wealth, but Waco isn’t like that.” He wants to make a difference that benefits the people in more than just economic ways.

The work he has done opening the Hippodrome is doing exactly what he hoped it would. The theatre adds some prestige to downtown and provides a place for people to enjoy themselves. Shane especially enjoys hearing the stories of the people who grew up watching movies or had their first date with their husband in the theatre.  One big way Shane has had a social impact on downtown has been by providing the Hippodrome as a venue for Harris Creek Baptist Church on Sunday mornings.

Harris Creek’s mission is to “seek the welfare of the city.” In August 2011, Harris Creek they started a downtown campus in a building across the street from the Hippodrome, called the Palladium. It was a huge success. The two Sunday morning services were always packed. The problem was the level floor and columns in the Palladium made it almost impossible to see past the person standing in front of you. Shane, a deacon at Harris Creek, offered the Hippodrome as a new location.  In November of 2014, the church made the move across the street.

It is easy to get lost in the wonder, beauty, and warmth that is created in the Hippodrome on Sunday mornings. The Hippodrome becomes a modern day cathedral, where people are praising God in an ornate, beautiful building. On a recent Sunday the pastor even started a series called “God in the Movies.” It seemed fitting to hear the sermon in a movie theatre.

After the service, people spill out of the theatre and mingle in the lobby or on the sidewalk outside. Everyone is smiling and laughing, making new friends and catching up with older ones. The feeling of love and community is tangible.

Shane Turner doesn’t brag about his accomplishments. He says “Go with the flow. See where it takes you. I never thought I’d be doing this and I’m enjoying it.” He acts as if his accomplishments just sort of happened and had nothing to do with him. It seems possible that he is not even aware of the impressive impact he has made.

Galan Hughes, Director of Ministry Development at Harris Creek, says of Shane, “He would say ‘I’m not the most articulate person, and I’m not a champion or a cheerleader,’ but he has an incredible heart to transform this city.” Looking at the Hippodrome and the lives touched by it, it definitely seems that way.

The entrepreneur…  Shane Turner Graduated from Baylor University in 2002 with a degree in Political Science.  Since graduating Shane has made a career in Real Estate and Real Estate Development.  He started his first development almost 7 years ago and since that time has completed numerous other developments in multi-family, office, and commercial retail.  He and his brother own a Real Estate Investment company whose portfolio ranges from single-family residential rentals, multi-family units, retail space, office space, and restaurant space.  Shane is very active in his community and serves on the Boards of numerous charitable and community organizations.  He is an active member of Harris Creek Baptist Church in McGregor, Texas.

The writer…Payten Arthur is a social entrepreneurship major at Baylor University. She lives in an apartment with her twin sister, her best friend, and her Great Dane, Marlowe. 

The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.

(Note: This post is part of a series called “Entrepreneurs of Waco.”  The series is collaboration between the McLennan Small Business Development Center (SBDC), the Professional Writing program at Baylor University, and Act Locally Waco.  The McLennan Small Business Development Center offers technical assistance, business mentoring, training, and resources for all stages of small business. For more information, visit their website: www.mccsbdc.com.  To see all the posts in this series, click here: Entrepreneurs of Waco.  – ABT)

By Shannon Lesko

Two minutes to throw, three minutes to assemble and stamp, another minute to trim, two days to fire, 30 seconds to glaze, and there you have it– a finished Magnolia Market mug. At the end of the week Black Oak Art has 1200 Magnolia Market mugs, at least, that’s what they’re averaging these days.

Meet Jonathan Martin, the mastermind behind this production. As a Baylor graduate Jonathan is, in some ways, back home in Waco, although he originally hails from Los Angeles. At Baylor he thought he might end up teaching for a living, which he did for a while. Then he returned to Los Angeles where he and his wife, Sara, helped plant a church. After living with their first child in a small one-bedroom apartment, he decided to move his family to Waco. He admits, “When we came back to Waco it felt like a defeat, but somehow I felt like God had spoken to me and that we were coming back into the promised land.”Jonathan smiled, almost in disbelief in what he was saying, “We had all these dreams in our hearts for whatever reason, and we had this sense of hope that God was going to bring us into those when we came back to Waco.”

Waco was not always the “promised land” though. Jonathan did his time as a “starving artist.” Well maybe not starving, but as he says, “peddling my wares wasn’t quite cutting it.” Initially he would fill his truck with boxes of pottery and drive around, stopping any place he thought might sell his pottery. Thinking back on those early days, he laughs.

It was a college friend who ignited Black Oak Arts workflow. Joanna Gaines, owner of the now famous Magnolia Market and star of HGTV’s hit show Fixer Upper, took note of Jonathan’s craftsmanship. “Joanna’s first order was for these gift baskets she and Chip would give to their realty clients, but at that point no one really cared if their logo was on the side of a mug.” That original order was for 25 mugs; now Jonathan is trying to get 1500 out the door every week.

Needless to say, Jonathan is not a one man show anymore. He has assembled a team and his dream of cultivating a workplace where potters could collaboratively create pieces together has come to life. That doesn’t mean that Jonathan has stopped getting his hands dirty; his clay splattered Black Oak Art apron can attest to that. While he maintains a friendly banter with the other potters, his hands carefully begin morphing a lump of clay into a cylinder and then, in one graceful motion, he gently draws out a recognizable shape. Effortlessly it seems, he lures a mug out of the shapeless lump. Jonathan explains that it’s not an exact science, and even though they try to get the same look every time, each one ultimately is unique – that is the magic of it all.

“There is something tangibly different about a hand-made piece,” Jonathan knows.  At the Magnolia Silos, the patrons recognize that each piece is different. They carefully sort through the mugs to find the right shape, size, and look to complete the experience of enjoying their morning cups of Joe. Since the opening of the Silos in October, twenty-four thousand handmade mugs have gone home with Magnolia fans; that’s a whole lot of mornings that Jonathan gets to be a part of.

Jonathan’s dreams for the future include more than mugs. “I have these really cool pots and wall pockets in the works for Magnolia,” he says.  Black Oak Art also plans to open a new storefront called Gather. “Gather is a sort of marriage between my passion for artisanship and my wife’s passion of entertaining,” Jonathan smiles. The retail store will hold tabletop treasures, all designed and hand thrown by Jonathan himself, ready to enrich the homes of patrons in new and unexpected ways.

Jonathan smiles as he remembers back to the days they only had twenty mugs on dock for a month, now he produces three hundred times that, “but it’s cool to look back and see that when we came back to Waco it really wasn’t a defeat but God was bringing us into this new thing. I don’t necessarily feel that we are promised years and years more of this, I mean, I could be back peddling my wares again someday, but I’ve learned it’s one day at a time.”

The entrepreneur…Black Oak Art is a local ceramic shop in Waco TX.  Founded by Jonathan Martin a 2000 Studio Art graduate from Baylor University.  Black Oak Art specializes in custom ceramic designs.  We work with each client to create the pieces that match their needs and personality.  We sell both wholesale and retail pieces.

The writer…Shannon Lesko puts her degree in Professional Writing to good use at the intersection of business strategy and creativity, as a Content Strategist. She is a lover of words, beginnings and Waco. You might find her around town exploring hidden gems, hiking, or brainstorming her next project with her husband. She believes there is power in telling stories and cultivating the dreams of the people behind them. 

The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.

(Note: This post is part of a series called “Entrepreneurs of Waco.”  The series is collaboration between the McLennan Small Business Development Center (SBDC), the Professional Writing program at Baylor University, and Act Locally Waco.  The McLennan Small Business Development Center offers technical assistance, business mentoring, training, and resources for all stages of small business. For more information, visit their website: www.mccsbdc.com.   To see all the posts in this series, click here: Entrepreneurs of Waco.  – ABT)

By Allison Le Grice

“I love owning a business where I only succeed if my clients succeed,” Melissa Pardun explains as her dog Josie leaps onto her desk to lick the palm of her hand. Along with her husband Rick Pardun, Melissa owns Maker’s Edge. Maker’s Edge is a “maker space,” a full-featured do-it-yourself studio for anyone from teens to hobbyists to high-tech entrepreneurs who want to make things.  According to the website, Maker’s Edge is a “…a space that brings together a community of DIY people with wonderful fabrication equipment in a way that supports collaboration, creativity, ingenuity and personal development.”

Melissa, with her thick royal blue rimmed eyeglasses and zebra print nails, sits in her office conveniently at the front of the maker space.  This allows her to shout a greeting to every member who walks in. “Community is our number one emphasis,” Melissa says, pointing to a banner in shop that reads “Look around you, here are your fellow doers. Here is your creative team.”

Upon walking into Maker’s Edge, you see a huge open workspace with tables and stools where members work on their projects in the presence of other members. Surrounding this open space is a collection of private working spaces — Wood Shop, Metal Shop, Welding Shop, and Electronics Shop, to name a few — that are available to members upon completing proper training.

“Once we finally got started, our biggest battle was having to define what a maker space was. No one knew what the heck we were,” Melissa chuckles. Even among the engineer and maker community, it was rare that people in Waco had heard of, much less been to, a maker space. Small town curiosity helped. People were constantly wandering in to ask about Maker’s Edge; some of those curious visitors stuck around to become members. Now some of those members are making products that are being sold at Magnolia Market.

Maker’s Edge is one of the largest maker spaces around that isn’t a part of a franchise. This is largely because the Pardun’s decided to establish a for-profit business instead of the more typical non-profit maker space.  The for-profit model allowed them to get big quickly and fill the shop with mostly new, efficient, and precise tools.  Additionally, this business model allows Maker’s Edge to team with Circle Hardware to provide an in-house mini-hardware store for those “forgotten materials”.  And a hidden benefit of avoiding the non-profit makerspace “club” approach: members never have to take their turn cleaning the bathrooms!

Maker’s Edge charges membership fees. Members use the space and everything in it for a monthly fee that goes towards the maintenance of the building, tools, and material that makers wish to use. The membership types range from “Unlimited Open Shop Membership” for $125 a month to a “Youth Membership” for $30 a month.  There’s also an “Entrepreneur Package” that provides 24-hour access, an enclosed office, a professional address and mailbox, and more benefits for entrepreneurs.

The idea for Maker’s Edge came about when Rick Pardun, an engineer, grew frustrated with engineering applicants who could not design well. They had all the education necessary for their job, but they couldn’t physically do anything because they had never touched a tool.  As an avid reader of Make Magazine, a magazine dedicated to DIY and all types of building, Rick was aware of the maker space movement and thought that it might be a good idea to start one with his wife Melissa, who was very familiar with nonprofit work.

Initially they worried that Waco would not be the ideal place to start a business, but Melissa did not want to leave Waco until her children were out of school.  Waco eventually proved itself to be a fine location – big enough to ensure business in the shop, but not big enough to attract much competition from the franchises. The Parduns grew up in that small town environment. They appreciate that Waco seems to embrace a small town feel despite not being a “small town.” They wanted to be able to have a business where their members appreciated that the owners treated them like neighbors.

Melissa and Rick decided to get help actually creating this business idea.

First, they sought some advice from Bradley Norris, an entrepreneurship instructor at Baylor University who was familiar with teaming up technology with entrepreneurship. Bradley had played with the idea of creating a maker space himself, but never had the time or the means. He offered Melissa and Rick some guidance on the technicalities of starting that kind of business as well as constant emotional support. Next, they got help from the LAUNCH program. This program included a three-day intensive workshop, where entrepreneurs gathered all of their business ideas and proposals together in order to actually begin the process of starting their business. After this, they got in touch with Jane Herndon of McLennan Small Business Development Center. Jane helped Melissa and Rick create a cohesive plan to present to a bank. Finally, Melissa and Rick got access to the most important part of the business process: connections. The Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce provided the Parduns with access to other business people who could help them get started and helped them get their business name out to more entrepreneurs around Waco.

“One thing I would tell entrepreneurs is that an independent spirit does not work…We live off a community philosophy,” Melissa says with a large smile. “It takes a community to start a business. It takes a community to complete a project. It takes a community to do everything in this life. Embrace it.”

The Entrepreneurs…Melissa Pardun is the Executive Director of Maker’s Edge.  Melissa is a life-long thinker and maker and strongly identifies with teaching the ideals of the DIY spirit to the next generation of innovators.  Rick Pardun is the Chief EDGe-ineer, the creative force responsible for initial workshop design and ongoing training and tool acquisition.  As a mechanical engineer, Rick has 18 years of experience in prototyping and design in the aerospace industry.

The writer…Allison Le Grice is an English student at Baylor University. She is passionate about literature, mental health, and recycling. In her free time, she is most likely binge-watching “Chopped.”

The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.