July 1, 2018

It seems our long and varied careers have led us to this!  When we were first married and dreaming of where our future would take us, we agreed to let interesting job opportunities lead the way and see what happened.  Here we are, 5 states, 14 houses, 2 kids, 9 cats and many years later launching Story Factory: a media production company that features our love of telling YOUR story in a way that speaks to the masses.

Now let’s go waaaayyyy back to see where it all began!

In the months prior to our wedding, Thommie was working as a production assistant on a Bionic television special in South Carolina and Miki was directing fashion shows and special events at a department store in Georgia. The month before the wedding, Miki went home to plan and prepare, while Thommie stayed behind in Georgia to convert a carriage house into their first apartment.  He had convinced the owner to let us stay there rent-free in exchange for renovating it into a livable space.  It is vision like this that brings a unique twist to every project Thommie takes on.

After the wedding, we moved in to our new apartment and enjoyed early married life living in Georgia, working on fashion shows and feature films.  It was a long and glorious life in the southeast… well, not really… we were married in April, and by the end of that year Miki was interviewing in Ohio for the position of assistant Fashion Director for the corporate office of the department store where she worked.

Moving to Ohio in our first year of marriage was challenging, but we were young and energetic.  We bought our first house and Miki jumped head first into the immersion that is corporate retail.  The hours were long and the projects were intensely detailed— but the access to technology was ever-growing and Miki found a love for graphic design and multi-media that translated into some super cool fashion training materials for the corporation.  Thommie was moving his way up the feature film ladder at that point, taking on set dressing and decorating— however this meant that he was away from home for months at a time while working on movies.

When a magazine for tween girls approached Miki about moving to Maryland to be fashion and events editor, we packed our bags and drove east. Moving to Maryland meant that Thommie could work on movies that were closer to home and Miki could explore a new facet of fashion media.  In addition to styling the shoots, the magazine needed a webmaster, so she learned HTML and built the magazine’s first website.  Thommie was working steadily in some great films and bringing home some amazing ideas that he used in renovating a row house.

One afternoon, after living in Maryland for about 18 months, Thommie was involved in an accident that left him wheelchair bound for months. Unable to go back to feature films, he started learning HTML and shifted his creative endeavors to computer-based ones.  Already an accomplished musician, Thommie was able to spend a good deal of time learning various forms of digital media while he recovered.

While working for the tween magazine, Miki traveled over the US producing fashion shows, styled the monthly fashion articles and explored the new media of the Internet, creating a web environment the readers thoroughly enjoyed.  On one memorable trip to Florida for a fashion show, Miki was contacted by a world-wide shoe retailer with an opportunity to move to Kansas to work in their fashion trend research division.  So, you guess it, we packed our bags and this time we traveled west!

Kansas didn’t provide many opportunities for work in movies- but that didn’t stop Thommie.  He first built a nice business doing photography for realtors, working with the brand new 3D tours, still photos and video.  Miki was creating trend education pieces for the corporate buyers at the shoe company and meeting the directors of the different divisions— including their Instructional Design department. Introducing Thommie to this group turned out to be a perfect match.

And while Thommie was making matches with his own piece of corporate retail, Miki was taking a little side gig and turning it into a neighborhood staple.  She and a friend moved their part-time gift basket service into the cutest brick and mortar shop with gifts, a coffee bar, meeting space and an art gallery!  Once the dream started unfolding, they just couldn’t stop the growth.  In their first year open, they won the Woman-Owned Retail Shop of the Year for the State of Kansas.  

Working with the Instructional Design team at that world-wide shoe retailer allowed Thommie to bring his feature film background to the corporate arena.  Their edutainment videos and learning modules actually became requested by employees— people WANTED to learn!  In his time there, Thommie created over 200 training pieces that were used by 22,000 employees worldwide.  It was this experience, teamed with some of the solo work he was doing in the local advertising markets that inspired another worldwide company to recruit Thommie to move back to Ohio. Miki’s store was sold to one of her longtime customers and we packed our bags, moving on to a new adventure.

The first time in Ohio, we were on the southern border. This time we were way up north.  Thommie was heading up the instructional media department of a company that had recently merged.  It was a roller coaster of great opportunities and incredible setbacks.  At home we were taking on our biggest home renovation yet.  Miki was working freelance with a variety of clients doing graphic design, branding and building websites.  Pretty much right in the middle of that renovation, the unrest at his company resulted in the entire Ohio division to be shut down.  The leaders of the Ohio group quickly saw an opportunity to build something of their own and asked Thommie to join them.

Thommie became a partner in a cutting-edge software development company, specializing in corporate training.  Their clients varied from restaurants to eyewear to healthcare— and the praises for their work were high.  Their small team won awards for content creation and overall business growth.  Miki continued to work for freelance clients, but was able to take more time with the kids.  We began homeschooling our oldest while the little one was in preschool.  

What seemed like a random trip to Texas to visit a friend turned into our next opportunity.  While sitting in a group chatting about business growth, Thommie and his friend brainstormed a host of ideas that really got them both thinking.  By the time the plane had landed back in Ohio, Thommie’s friend was working out a way to move Thommie to Texas so he could be a part of growing in a totally different industry.

Moving to Texas, Thommie was able to head up the education department of a steel fabrication company.  His team was to develop the software that would help bring technology to a traditionally paper-and-pen industry. Shortly after we arrived, however, oil prices tanked and the price of steel dropped so low that businesses were operating on skeleton crews.  Thommie knew it was time to start looking for what was next in our adventure.

The next step turned out to be a medical clinic about 5 hours west, but still in Texas.  Here, Thommie had the opportunity to create education pieces that really made a difference in people’s lives.  Videos that highlighted a family’s journey to healing, pieces on navigating the step-by-step path to wellness and just conveying the overall joy that comes with the peace and truth in a non-traditional look at healthcare.  Miki jumped in to help brand the new nutrition division of the clinic, producing the printed and online materials that patients could use to guide them on a new path of cooking and meal planning. Her branding skills were used throughout the clinic, helping grow the gardening, exercise and retail sales divisions of the company.

This brings us to today.  Over the years, each move, each new adventure, brought along new skills and contacts that have become a piece of what Story Factory is today.  Every new experience was not really random at all— all those projects in all those industries added more and more to our own story. Add in all of the technology we’ve been able to pick up along the way, and you’ve got the recipe for some pretty unique ways of looking at information sharing! Of course, in all that, the most valuable lesson we have learned is the power of connection— so we share what we’ve learned with you… helping you to share what you know with the masses!