10 years ago my friend Mike Botkin and I were having a conversation over a couple of beers about what it might take to get a production company off the ground. We had all kinds of interests back then, making documentaries on commission, making video games and yes, building websites.
We had a list of names for what we’d call that company. My grandfather’s nickname was “Pacer” because he liked to walk around a lot while he was worrying (which he did a ton of.) Pacer Productions had a really nice ring to it due to the consonance. There were others.
I wish that I could say that Coalmarch was the first choice, but it took us a few days to come up with. We both really liked the film October Sky because it was full of hope and really intelligent people. Somehow it merged what was (at the time) the most technologically complicated human problem; with one of the most dangerous and physically intense industries in the world (and still is to this day.)
Coalmarch was eventually settled on and I registered a domain. I rolled out a website based on some tech that I’d built for my freelance clients to use to manage a website based on the contents of text files and I continued doing freelance for another year or so.
When my brother passed away in 2003, Coalmarch was almost a faded memory really. How could I get it from being this nebulous idea, this thing that had almost no practical execution, to being something vivid and real? Losing Rob showed me point blank two things: I couldn’t afford to waste another minute without direction; and I couldn’t do it alone.
Later that year, I got a call from an old friend of mine suggesting that I follow-up with this guy (Jake St. Peter) who worked for a local travel and events company, they needed help programming or something. Jake and I met and we hit it off immediately. It seemed like where I didn’t really know how to charge the real value of things, he didn’t know much about technology. After the third or fourth time working with him it was pretty clear to everyone that we were going to start something big.
We formally started the business of Coalmarch in March of that year. I worked as the first full-time employee and Jake left his job to come onto the payroll that summer. I bought a house and we worked there for a while before moving into our first offices the following winter.
Over the course of our tenure at Coalmarch, we made all kinds of mistakes and had incredible successes. We did work for companies of every size and the work was exciting, and in some rare cases even important. Every day was some new adventure in human resources, administration or technological progress.
We went on like that for a couple of years. Everyone grew up inside that entity. We brought people together, people fell away, life got lived. At some point, it seems like we stopped solving other people’s business problems and started having to focus entirely on our own. I can’t say that years from now, I’ll be able to tell you whether or not, or what, specific thing happened that changed things for me; I’m not really sure it’s all that important.
Today is November first 2012. 11 years ago today I was permanently laid-off from my job as a programmer at PBM Graphics (a print and multimedia company.) Today I am no longer a partner at Coalmarch Productions. While I’ll always consider myself the founder of the company, I know that I leave it in incredibly capable hands. Jason Stanley is now the sole owner of the company. They still make websites and handle marketing fulfillment and frankly I wouldn’t recommend you take your business anywhere but there. We began this transition almost two years ago and he’s done some amazing things with the company.
I want to say thank you to everyone that supported us over the years. Every problem we solved together is a lesson that I’ll take with me everywhere I go. Sometimes when big things happen, people say things like “Man, time just flew by there.” That is not the case for me and my time with Coalmarch, I treasure every moment and will for as long as I’m on this planet.