Response, Page 2

The bigger point to Daniel’s reporting on the Miracle village project is his liberal usage of out of context quotes and his (to use his word) outlandish statement that “…by summer, Hignite’s ever-growing empire began to implode: animators and other employees were getting laid-off, the banks were balking, and Miracle Village’s construction stalled. But Hignite seemed remarkably unruffled through it all, imparting an almost child-like certainty that God or some kind of Disneyish happy ending would inevitably rescue him.” This preceding quote from Daniel’s article is simply not supported by any factual basis, other than the fact that due to a well publicized home market downturn, we (and about every other home builder I know of across the country) did lay off some staffers. As for banks balking, we did work close with our main bank (not banks) to let them know what we were doing, and they did certainly offer advice, but no one I knew “balked”. We did business, plain and simple. I can only guess that Daniel may not have come from a business background and does not realize that in any market downturn, layoffs usually follow. His observation of me being “remarkably unruffled” was and still is true. We have a great company, producing great products at competitive prices. We have great banks that know us very well and there is no reason at all to become “ruffled” over a market downturn, so long as we take steps to move with the market. Immediately after Daniel’s preceding statement of late summer, he switches to a fragment quote I made in spring where I said “nothing really matters that much”, where I was referring to material things versus people and experiences. He notes that even in that springtime interview, I explained that we would be selling our present house. When he asked me if I would miss all of the things I had put in to my present house, I explained how the house was now too big for us, my children would be going to college, and how we already had land in Germantown (adjacent to Miracle Village) to build a new, smaller home. Later in Daniel’s article, he expresses concern that I had abruptly placed my home on the market, insinuating perhaps that business was worsening. This is just not the case.

On page two of the article, Daniel begins by I “bounced” around and “drifted for several years” after high school. All my life I have had a drive to succeed and the notion of me spending even one week of “drifting” is a foreign concept to me. Daniel’s recounting of my failed inflatable rubber raft business, work at a boat dealership (for seven years), and attempts to buy a home, going to home shows, seminars, etc.. was a fair assessment. Daniel did interview people who had worked with me, side by side, during these years. These past co-workers called me with one saying in effect “I told him that you were the hardest working person I had ever met, but he seemed uninterested in hearing that kind of thing.”

I appreciate that Daniel did include parts of an interview he had with an experienced banker who gave us the money to start our first home, then later our first model home. I am glad he has never felt me to be a “phony-baloney as I strive to be upfront in life and business alike. As Daniel’s article also explains that some of our homebuilding competitors “…wondered how a guy without any previous building experience or personal fortune could flip his way to a multi-million dollar company so quickly..”, I suspect that our success is our candidness with our business partners as well as our great products, fair prices and (of course) our advertising. I thank God each day for our many “miraculous” blessings.

In the middle of the article’s second page, Daniel’s description of our company working 80 employees out of my Richfield home is inaccurate as our top staffing when we were there was just under 60. Not to split too many hairs, but even at these levels, we regularly had the Richfield Fire Department do safety inspections, and some members from the town board would visit socially from time to time. We had never had any complaint from our staff, the neighbors, or the town about the business. It was only when we applied to Richfield to expand the building that we were asked to move. It is a long story as to how Richfield originally had no issues with this and as to how eventually moved, but suffice it to say that a building of that magnitude of our home/office does not get permitted and built without the full knowledge of the township. The important issue here was (as I had always said to various officials) if we cannot expand our building, we would have to leave, and that’s what eventually happened.

As for Daniel’s assessment that I had “horror at the thought of people laboring beneath the indignity of a drop-tile ceiling”, I do not now or have I ever had such thoughts. Our entire staff presently works very nicely under an entire drop-tile ceiling, although we are considering putting rhinestones over them in the near future (humor).

When Daniel begins to try to assess our Miracle Homes marketing, he goes into detail about my Disney collection. I freely admit to being an E-Bay shopper and these items do appear not only in my home, but also in many of our model homes as well in various themed bedrooms. I take issue with the article’s implication that Disneyland or Disney World was the “Holy Grail” of my childhood family vacations. The fact is that I never visited either Disney place until I was in college. We were more of the Kentucky or Tennessee type road trip family with an occasional road trip to the east coast for a sailboat show. I cannot imagine (as Daniel’s article suggest) “profess aloud” or even having thoughts for any desire to be the next Walt Disney. I admire Walt Disney and have read about his life and times, but disagree with many aspects of his beliefs and business practices. He was a man who succeeded because he had good creative ideas and worked to make them happen. I admire this quality in anyone but Walt Disney takes a far back seat to folks like my father, another Walt, who never gives up and always tries his best to be upfront and honest first.

The only person who I have ever publicly or privately expressed a desire to emulate goes back to my Christian beliefs. Even when our (past) Art Studio Manager, Tim, was quoted to say “all I can guess is there is somebody who…compared him to Walt, and Tom took it to heart.” Tim was correct in that some folks have made the comparison, but I have no hidden or heartfelt aspirations to be anyone but who I was made to be.

The idea of using some of the marketing things that Disney has done and relate them to another (in this case, home building) business is another reason why our competitors have seen us grow so fast. This concept is nothing new in the world of marketing. Disney did not create animation. After all, he improved it. When I was being interviewed by Daniel, and his questions turned to the subject of whether I was “copying” Disney, I suppose, I told him I am copying when assembling some of our themed bedrooms, but no more than any other builder when they might “copy” other themes. It is not unusual for builders to have a Green Bay Packer, or Batman, or Sponge Bob themed bedroom. Just as I do, we purchase themed items on the retail or E-Bay market and decorate a room with them. I went on to explain to Daniel that I had little interest in copying Disney in other ways, except to capture the same sense of awe or “magic” that people feel when experiencing Disney theme parks or movies.

When folks walk into one of my homes, I want them to feel excited. When we build a home for them, I want them to have a good experience. When we have an opportunity to build a new facility, I want our staff to experience a similar excitement. It seems that Daniel may have missed the explanation I was attempting to convey. To put it another way, Walt Disney did not create the stories of Snow White, Pinocchio, Bambi, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast, Jungle Book, Etc.. he “copied” these stories from others, then brought his own unique “twist” of creativity to each of them. I did not invent or create the concept of building nice homes. We have become Wisconsin’s largest scattered site (an item not mentioned by Daniel) homebuilder because we have created our own unique “twist” in home building.

When we expanded our small marketing department to develop our home building mascot Miracle Mouse into a bigger public entity (a movie) I had little interest in simply copying what Disney had done before. I wanted to use the classic Disney musical films as a starting point, but then give it our own unique “twist” to make something fresh and new.

This concept was something that, not to anyone’s surprise, was difficult for a department full of ex-Disney folks to fully embrace. In the article, my friend and ex-manager Tim explained that he thought the style of the movie was ever changing and not concrete. I disagree and offer that the real issue was that it was struggle to get the studio to see the very concrete vision I had in mind for the show. My fear was that the show would look like a Disney movie because the artists had Disney engrained into them. An artist would present me with some wonderful scene they had designed and I wanted to push the flavor away from Disney and into a whole new styling. This was most true in the realm of backgrounds. When Tim states that I would change my mind every time I might watch another Disney movie, this could not be true because I rarely watched classic animated Disney movies in the past many years. I have tried to not become unconsciously indoctrinated with being too heavily influenced by any past such movie. I did refer to Winnie the Pooh as likely the closest movie Disney has to our proposed film and have watched parts of some Disney movies in research. I did see “Chicken Little”, but that was known not be to be a musical nor done in 2D.

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