Articles

The Business of Learning

Brothers Make Firm an Educational Arena

Brothers Tim and Josh Segars figured they had the complementary skills — Tim on the technical side and Josh on the creative side — necessary to run their own design communications firm.

So, in January 2001, they created Segars Communications Inc., which at one point essentially was three computers and a black Labrador retriever puppy in a bedroom of a Central Lubbock house.

Robin O'Shaughnessy / A-J Photo

Regular employees Andrew Anaruk, left, and Stephan Segraves at work Wednesday, June 23, 2004, at Segars Communications.

The brothers soon realized how big a step they had taken.

‘‘The old saying — the more you know, the more you find out you don’t know — is definitely true,’’ Josh said. ‘‘We didn’t know anything, and we were trying to run this business, deal with new technologies, deal with day-to-day business administration, things we had never thought of.’’

That humbling beginning has stayed with the brothers, who have turned their Web development business into an educational arena for college students.

Segars Communications employs two Texas Tech students part time and adds as many as four interns during a typical school semester.

‘‘Growing up, we were always around an educational environment in some capacity, and we had a desire to always learn something new,’’ Tim said.

‘‘We translated that to our company by making the decision we wanted to regularly employ students. We wanted to benefit from students’ ideas and attitudes toward education — they’re younger and excited about learning something — and give back to the educational environment by providing a situation where students could (mentally) exercise their muscles a little bit.

‘‘It’s definitely worked out like we imagined.’’

It’s also benefited students such as Stephan Segraves, a Tech junior majoring in management information systems and part-time programmer for the business. Andrew Anaruk, who is completing a master’s degree in management information systems at Tech this summer, is the other part-time employee.

‘‘Stephan is our resident computer geek,’’ Josh said with a laugh. ‘‘If you have a question about it, he’ll know it, and if he doesn’t know it, he’ll find out quickly.’’

Segraves enjoys working with new computer technology.

‘‘I just like messing with new stuff,’’ he said.

The addition of employees and interns has paralleled the growth of Segars Communications, which designs and maintains Web sites, designs software and develops materials such as magazine advertisements and brochures. The Web sites range from fewer than 10 pages to 100 pages or more, Josh said.

Company revenues doubled after the first year and are expected to double again after the third year, which began in January.

‘‘Financially, we’ve reached a level of success we anticipated,’’ Tim Segars said.

Robin O'Shaughnessy / A-J Photo

Brothers Tim and Josh, right, Segars Wednesday, June 23, 2004, at Segars Communications; which is run out of their home.

The firm has gone from five to more than 20 clients, including banks, land developers, non-profit community education groups, state education boards and other retail businesses. The firm is developing local clients, but the majority of its clients are on the East Coast.

Clients range from small organizations to ‘‘our first client worth more than a billion dollars,’’ Tim Segars said. The list includes the Junior Faculty Development Program, which recruits university faculty from Europe to study in U.S. schools and is part of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.

Segars Communications has undergone another expansion, growing out of the single bedroom into most of the house while maintaining a relaxed atmosphere.

Two mountain bicycles are stored on wall racks in the entry way. Music is usually played during the flexible business hours. Work attire can be a T-shirt, jeans and flip flops. Ferris, the black Lab, is on hand to greet visitors as part of his job as director of mood enhancement.

‘‘He really does make a difference around the office,’’ Josh Segars said of the 3-year-old dog. ‘‘He always wants to know where everybody is. He’ll come say hello to everybody as they come in. He’s always under at least one of our desks or, unfortunately, on the couch.’’

The business hasn’t yet pushed Tim, 31, and Josh, 27, and their younger brother, Daniel, out of the house. But relocating is not new to the brothers, whose family moved often before their father retired from the Air Force in Clovis, N.M.

Tim was born in Clovis and lived in Virginia and Colorado, where Josh was born in Colorado Springs. The family also lived in England, Germany, Virginia again, Turkey and New Mexico again.

‘‘We are natives of all over the place,’’ said Josh, who said that contacts they made while living on the East Coast helped them land clients as businessmen.

Tim earned a bachelor’s degree in technical writing from the University of New Mexico and a master’s of science degree in technical communications from North Carolina State. He has taught an online media course at Tech and developed a new course last semester designed to ‘‘help graduating seniors understand a little bit more about what it was going to be like when they get out into the working community.’’

Josh, who taught English in Kazakhstan for one year and previously owned for six months a much smaller Web design business, is a part-time student in Tech’s design communications department. His approach to education has changed in the past few years.

‘‘When I’m taking a class, instead of sitting there thinking, ‘Oh man, I wish this class was over,’ it’s more like, ‘What else can I suck in? Can I pull something from this class that they’re not even going to teach me, something that I can place with one of our clients?’

‘‘One of the things that is difficult, challenging and exciting is our clients are so different. We’ll go meet with bankers, and the next day we’re driving past a corn field (on our way to) deal with people who sell flower bulbs on a national basis.

‘‘So in every class I’ve taken for the past two years or so, I’m wondering, ‘What can I get out of this for a potential client?’’

The brothers, who are both single, said their business is headed for change.

Maintaining diversified clients in terms of size and location and staying abreast of new technology is vital to growth, Tim said.

Further expansion, eventually out of their home offices, seems inevitable, said Josh, who is engaged to be married within one year.

‘‘We’re fighting having to expand again,’’ he said. ‘‘We like the idea of eventually having an office, but we don’t want to go to the office. Our commute right now is about 30 seconds.’’

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