Terralever Owner Stays Grounded
Workers are priority for Web-design boss
Sep 04, 2007
The Arizona Republic – Christia Gibbons
The quote on the back of Chris Johnson's business card is a peek into his business soul: "The will of the people is the best law."
Johnson, 33-year-old founder of Tempe-based Terralever, an interactive marketing and technology-services agency, said his success starts and ends with the people he hires.
"If I was looking at what to be envious about my own company, it would be that we get and retain good people," he said.
Johnson said he and business partner Andy Richter keep their 23 employees excited in part by promoting a work environment that incorporates fun and camaraderie with autonomy and responsibility.
Johnson got his start in the business world by landing a job with Integrated Information Systems, a granddaddy to today's e-commerce industry, when he was a sophomore at Arizona State University.
He climbed quickly and ended up a general manager and on the board of directors by the time he was 26.
But when he found himself having to fire people week after week when the dot-com bubble burst, he took a break.
Johnson formed Terralever in 2002, taking inspiration from quotes by the famous mathematician Archimedes, who said, "Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth."
Chris Johnson said from the beginning that he was interested in building a business culture that encouraged risk-taking and leveraging his crew's talents to take clients' businesses further.
"Our largest assets are the people who go up and down those stairs," he said, pointing to the staircase leading to the main office of the company's three offices in Tempe's Mill Avenue district.
Terralever is a company in which, on any given day, employees have bloodshot eyes from working long hours to complete a project, eat at their desks to keep the momentum going, and have dry-cleaned shirts hanging from an office doorknob just in case.
The environment, though, appears to be breeding success.
Since its creation, Terralever employees have garnered numerous state and national Web-design and marketing awards. In the past two years, the company has expanded from working with such local companies as Cambridge Properties and Simply Bread to national clients Microsoft and Red Bull.
Business partner Richter said Johnson's capability arises from caring, "Chris has incredible ability to relate to people on every level because he truly cares," Richter said.
Johnson brought Richter on board as an equal partner in Terralever's second year.
They first met at ASU working in study groups together and later reconnected. Johnson said he saw in Richter someone who could deliver what he couldn't.
"He's incredibly smart, and good-hearted," Johnson said. "At a conference, I'm the one learning about the industry trends, and he's the one meeting the 10 people a day and networking for our business."
When Jim Showalter, marketing director for Show Low Bluff, a $1 billion, 1,500-acre residential and recreational community under development, was looking for a company to redesign the community's Web site, he said Terralever jumped to the forefront.
"Of course they had the technical ability," Showalter said, "but what made me go with them was their willingness to think differently, to take a different approach and not do what everyone else does."
Media Contacts
Andrew Richter
Terralever, Managing Partner
direct: 480.839.1080
sales@terralever.com