Turning trash and trinkets into tchotchkes of distinction

Caren Schweitzer earned a business degree from the University of Minnesota but wound up as a stay-at-home mom suffering from an entrepreneurial itch that homemaking didn't quite satisfy.

So in 1995 she started a part-time business in the basement of her Plymouth home, supplying promotional products to corporate clients for their branding, marketing and employee incentive programs.

Good thing, too: Shortly after she started the business, Schweitzer's marriage began to unravel and in 1997 she became a single mom with three kids to support. So she transformed her hobby into a full-time enterprise.

The result is Creative Resources Inc., a Hopkins company thriving in an industry crowded by more than 22,000 competitors. With top-tier clients ranging from Supervalu, TCF and Best Buy to MoneyGram International, Health Partners and Aveda, the company grew to 2008 revenue of $2.7 million.

How does she do it? "This is a saturated industry, so the only way to compete is with creativity and 24/7 attention to customer service," said Schweitzer, 49. Translated, that means she aims for design twists that go well beyond the coffee mugs and T-shirts that have branded the industry as a "trash-and-trinkets" business, as she put it.

To promote a new Supervalu beef brand, for example, Creative Resources produced the requisite T-shirts adorned with the corporate name and slogan ("Beef Spoken Here,"), but then wrapped them in old-fashioned butcher paper tied with twine to produce a nostalgic package that might be most familiar to geezers like me.

Then there was the "Back to the '60s" package created for Cub Foods' 40th anniversary, including a colorful "flower-power" bag containing a tie-dyed T-shirt, temporary tattoos that proclaim "I Love My Cub" and strings of colorful beads adorned with the peace sign. Again, a nostalgia trip for us codgers.

Or consider the delightful creation the company came up with as a promotional giveaway for Partnership for Quality Care, a coalition of health-care providers and professionals promoting health-care reform: nonwoven, recyclable blue hospital scrubs carrying the slogan, "Every Patient Matters."

It was an example of both creativity and exceptional customer service, according to Kate Navarro-Mckay, executive director of the Partnership: "Other companies told me scrubs like these weren't made in the USA anymore," she said. "But Creative Resources said, 'We'll find them,' and they did. It still feels like a small miracle."

My favorite, however, was the project involving an employee incentive program at Hamel-based Loram Maintenance of Way, a railway track maintenance firm. Creative Resources came up with the perfect beer cooler for fishing aficionados, a globular, 18-inch-tall number shaped like a bobber. Even better, it floats just like a bobber!

Perhaps as important as the creation and service side of the business are the bargain prices Creative Resources offers as a result of a trip Schweitzer took to Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2004. The goal was to locate manufacturers who would ship goods directly to the Twin Cities, thus eliminating vendor expenses in the middle.

It was not as simple a task as it sounds, however, because Schweitzer insisted on several conditions: products that were safe and high-quality and factories that had both safe work environments and fair employment practices (translation: no sweatshops).

Schweitzer also has signed onto the green movement, offering clients an "eco-option" with products that are recyclable, reusable, biodegradable and made from recycled products. Schweitzer said that segment of the business is growing rapidly despite the somewhat higher prices involved.

Her home-based entrepreneurial hustlings started with a simpler, less promising strategy, a part-time business painting abstract designs on white cotton children's clothing and selling them to children's clothing boutiques.

"Actually, it was more about splattering paint off the brush," Schweitzer said. "But they sold fairly well." But then a family friend who had been in the business suggested promotional products as a more remunerative undertaking that would still allow her to stay home with the kids.

"The timing couldn't have been better," Schweitzer said, referring to the divorce that came shortly after she started Creative Resources. "There was some child support, but when we needed money, the business kept us going."

The business was a three-person operation until 2006, when Schweitzer bought her Hopkins headquarters, arranged for use of an adjacent warehouse and started hiring.

The growth since then has been eye-fetching: Sales were up 53 percent in 2007 and another 17 percent in 2008, even as the recession spread.

And despite a horrendous first half of 2009, during which sales declined in double digits, a third-quarter push has the company on track to match last year's revenue total.

Dick Youngblood • 612-673-4439 • yblood@startribune.com