понедельник, 14 декабря 2009 г.

The Little Company That Could

Original: The Little Company That Could

Submitted by Dmitri Davydov on Thu, 2009-12-10 13:26.

Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You


http://www.woodentrain.com/

Surrounded by shelves stocked with 180 different wooden train cars, Sandy Oliver boxes orders at Whittle Shortline Railroad in New London, Mo. (pop. 1,001). Then she stops and picks up a bright blue replica of The Little Engine That Could.

"This is my favorite. I think it has personality," says Oliver, 48, about the beloved storybook character whose positive attitude and "I think I can" spirit help him conquer a mighty hill. e, Pat, 61, gave him a Sears miter saw for a Christmas gift in hopes that he would make crown molding for their house. When the box sat unopened for two years and she threatened to return the saw, Whitworth set it up in his garage and began building wooden trains.

"The neighborhood kids would come by and I'd give them away," he recalls.

Word soon spread about Whitworth's handmade hardwood trains, and orders began rolling in from merchants and companies, including Amtrak. In 1999, Whitworth bought the 1880 Frisco Hotel in Valley Park, Mo. (pop. 6,518), and opened a retail store and offices for his toy company.

Like The Little Engine That Could, the former U.S. Air Force pilot and designer of mail-sorting machines for the U.S. Postal Service embarked on another challenge earlier this year. He invested more than $1 million in equipment to manufacture wooden puzzles, including a line of multi-layered puzzles.

"Nobody wanted to give me a loan, and te. The birch wood puzzles are l

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