The State Journal

Unique market niche leaves Keyser businessman sitting pretty

By T.L. Headley, Staff Writer

Keyser—In 1980, Jim Kaufman was looking for a way to make a few extra dollars. The described ‘old hippy’ was taking a farm near Keyser and needed some extra money to help his wife and two daughters.

 A carpenter and handyman made, Kaufman landed a short-job in Washington, DC, adding a flagstone patio. As he was leaving, the man brought out a lot of expensive, but old, lawn furniture and asked in Kaufman could fixt it.

Kaufman agreed to give it a try and from that beginning his life changed.

Twenty years later, Kaufman owns Criterion Inc., one the region’s fastest-growing companies.

Based in Keyser, Criterion Inc. services and repairs high-end casual furniture.

The company repairs and refinishes the furniture as well as sells parts and accessories.

The company employs 20 people full-time and is equipped to weld, straighten, sandblast and refinish aluminum and wrought iron, as well as repair vinyl finishes.

Kaufman’s road to success may sound easy, but he had some big hurdles—some of which were self-imposed—before finding his way.

‘The thing I am proudest of is that I overcame the adversity that a self-employed person meets along the way,’ Kaufman said.

‘The fear of failure…of risk…the challenges for growth.’

‘They say 80 percent of small businesses fail in the first five years. I read that a few weeks ago in a book and reflected on it for a moment. I thought I should feel good about the fact that we survived.’

‘I thought I should feel confident. But then the book said that 80 percent of the remaining business fail over the next five years. In light of those facts, I didn’t know what to think.’

But Kaufman said his biggest obstacles were of his own making.

‘I spent a number of years entrenched in alcoholism,’ Kaufman candidly recalled. ‘It wasn’t because of family issues or other problems. It was just a fact of life. But I rose above it and found my answers.

‘The answers I would have today are different from those I had back then, and the answers I have found are the ones that stick.’

Kaufman said he is glad to, today, be a productive member of society, he just wishes he had gotten started on his new road sooner.

At 48, Kaufman is a success by any definition. He has built a business from the ground up and now enjoys a nationwide reputation for quality.

He attributes much of his success to the influence of his parents.

‘Believe it or not, I learned carpentry from my mom, Billie,’ Kaufman said. ‘She taught me how to work with my hands. She taught me upholstery and caning.

‘My dad, Jim, on the other hand, was a sales representative,’ he said. ‘I remember as a kid, I would lie on the floor of his office at home and listen to the way he would deal with people. He is a very ethical and righteous man. It was easy to be impressed with the way he did business.’

Kaufman said he never attended college or vocational school.

‘I just got out there and started working,’ he said.

Kaufman made the most out of the opportunity to restore lawn furniture.

‘Offenbackers, which sells pool equipment and casual furniture in Washington, had the fabric,’ Kaufman said.

‘I bought more of it than I needed just in case I messed up—which I did. But the owner of Offenbackers told me that if I was successful in restoring the furniture to let her know. She said there was plenty of work available.’

Kaufman was successful in restoring the furniture.

‘It didn’t take a mental giant to figure out that I could make a living doing it,’ Kaufman said.

‘I kept seeing more and more work out there. It was sort of coincidental, but the year I got into it, one the the major companies decided not to take restoration work at their factory. All of a sudden, I was making $30 an hour.’

Within two years, Kaufman hired his first employee.

In 1987, Criterion Inc. was born. Kaufman said he quickly saw that the amount of work was enough to support several others, and he wanted to do something to help the community as well.

‘I saw I could make more money than I would ever need,’ Kaufman said. ‘Currently we have 20 people. And we have carried that many year round for the past three years. None of us are going to Tahiti, but we are able to keep a good flow of business going.’

Today, Criterion has service and repair agreements in place with several major casual furniture companies, and occupies a 15,000-square-foot facility in the Keyser Industrial Park. The company reported over $775,000 in sales in 1998.