This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news

Starting Early: Jason Garber

As a child Jason Garber liked to "play business." By his mid-teens he owned one.

Now 21, the enterprising college senior has racked up more business savvy than some people twice his age.

Garber was six when his family got their first computer, an IBM PS2. "I jumped on it pretty early," he says. While other children were still learning to read, he pretended he was in business and made signs with desktop publishing.

He was a natural with computers. Word of his expertise got around his home town of Hutchinson, Kan. In his teens he was spending so much time helping people he decided to start charging.

"I picked a rate pretty well at random, $15 an hour," says Garber. "I thought that was big money then."

As he got busier he kept bumping it up. At $50 an hour he was still "as busy as I could tolerate."

By 15 he was president of his own company, Next Step Systems, which handled two lines of computer hardware, installed and configured networks and did web design.

Being so young in business had its perils. One day in high school he received a pink excuse slip that said "emergency." He rushed to the school office, fearing a family crisis. Relief washed over him when he learned it was a call from a client who urgently needed help with a computer system Garber had installed the previous weekend.

Since he was too young to drive, his father had to leave work to take him to the client, 22 miles away.

"I was learning how to keep customers satisfied a great deal faster than I had anticipated," Garber recalls.

When a national computer magazine profiled this midwestern wunderkind the editor had to ask for clarification: "Who or what," he queried, "is 16 years old – you or your company?"

By the end of high school Garber needed a break from cleaning off viruses and putting out fires.

"It was a relief to go to college and leave it all behind," he says.

He set his sights high – the Ivy League – but also checked out Eastern Mennonite University, which became his final choice.

He started off as an economics major, then added business administration. During his sophomore year he realized that despite being a computer whiz he "needed the piece of paper," so he added another stream in computer information systems. (Learn more about these majors ...)

As if this high-octane triple major – along with church volunteering, campus newspaper work and playing French Horn in several music groups – wasn’t enough, Garber got involved in another business start-up last year. It was a bittersweet episode that would teach him the value of mentors.

He got interested in Segway Human Transporter machines and decided he’d like to set up a business using the stand-up scooters to lead historical tours in Washington, D.C. He knew there was potential competition on the horizon with more capital and experience, "but I thought I could beat them to market."

He set to work on a business plan. What were the relevant regulations he’d have to meet? How could he fit into a system where Washington Metro had the rights to historical tours?

He invited a friend to join him and contacted Segway to contract seven machines.

Insurance posed a problem. "I called a hundred different insurers,” he says. "Lloyd’s of London finally came through."

He located rental space in Washington owned by a history buff who liked Garber’s trendy approach to promoting the capital’s history. He was willing to provide space at a discount, but wanted to make sure his prospective tenant could make it.

One weekend, just before Garber had reached the point of no return, the landlord called him in Harrisonburg. "He wanted to know how old I was. He also had some questions about my business plan. He didn’t think I had enough capital lined up."

For the next three days Garber argued with him, going back and forth by telephone. He began to see the landlord’s point.

Garber was learning a lot about what it takes to start a business – and about his own limits.

"It was so stressful," he says. "I was falling asleep while visiting with friends. I didn’t like where I was at."

He also recalled the counsel of Allon Lefever, head of EMU's MBA program and a seasoned corporate veteran. "He was concerned about my being an absentee owner, trying to run the company from a distance. Allon quoted a line from Donald Trump, ‘Some of the best deals I’ve made are ones I walked away from’."

Garber pondered all this, finally realizing, "I’m still in college, and I don’t ever get to come back. I won’t ever get to be a junior or senior again."

It was an hour or so before midnight. His friend/business associate was ready to rent a van in the morning to begin moving to Washington. Garber called him to report the deal was off.

The landlord released him from the rental agreement, and Garber managed to get out of the Segway deal. His total loss was a couple of thousand dollars, but a few hours later it would have been much more.

He learned the importance of a hard-nosed reality check. He had received a lot of support and affirmation for his plans, but looking back now he thinks a stronger critique would have been helpful. Finally it was the caution flags of Allon Lefever and the Washington landlord that clarified his decision.

"The landlord was a godsend,” says Garber. "He warned me – ‘I want you to succeed, but right now you’re not going to.’"

No sooner had he closed that door than another opportunity came up to intern with nearby Fairfield Language Technologies, which produces software to teach 28 languages, from Arabic to Swahili. He found the work stimulating and satisfying.

By helping people learn languages and increase global understanding "they’re making the world a better place," says Garber. "I really believe in them."

That’s important to Garber, who at 21 has already learned lessons well beyond his years. His vision for business extends into the realm of values and public service, something he was exposed to at home.

"My father has his own small land surveying business," he explains. "I learned a lot about how to treat people right, the idea of connecting biblical values, like the Sermon on the Mount, and living out your values in the marketplace. It’s intuitive to me."

As he approaches graduation this spring, he credits his Eastern Mennonite studies for informing his view of business in the broader world. That’s what drew him there in the first place.

When he was making up his mind about where to go to school he realized "I can go anywhere and they’ll teach me how to make a lot of money. But I wanted a broader world view, and that’s what I’ve gotten at EMU."
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Wally Kroeker is editor of The Marketplace, a bi-monthly magazine published by Mennonite Economic Development Associates, from which this article is reprinted by permission.

— article by: by Wally Kroeker, reprinted with permission; posted February 10, 2005