As featured in June 1998
	Dream of a Lifetime

Warren Dobson's Creativity Leads to Business Success

By Vincent F.A. Golphin

Many experts say the key to business success is to find a need and fill it. The simple theory has led to a wide range of profitable offerings, everything from McDonald's hamburgers to dog-walking services.

Warren E. Dobson II needed to found a business. The dream was more than a drive. He felt the urge in his soul, then satisfied it.

At 39, the Chicagoan has the life he prefers. His company, Dobson Products, sells a fast-growing line of Afrocentric plastic dinner and tableware. "When I started, all I sold were cups," he says. "From there, I expanded into squeeze bottles, ceramic mugs, dinner plates, ice buckets and glassware."

Within four years, an $1,800 investment has blossomed into a six-figure enterprise built on combining the use of the highly durable substance with the electric look of brightly colored West African Kente cloth and other images meaningful to African Americans.

The Kente Kup, a large plastic drinking glass regaled in Kente plaid was his first idea. It drew a number of clients, the largest of which was McDonald's, which bought them for use in Atlanta and other major markets during February, Black History Month. Since then, Dobson says, the limits of his business have been shaped by the breadth of his imagination and depth of his determination.

"When I started, I had about 15 different ideas and I ended up going into cups, which is now tabletop accessories, and soon will be expanded into desktop accessories," he says. "Maybe other companies will be started based upon some of the other ideas or by acquiring other companies that I see that will be able to move through the same distribution system."

On the surface, Warren Dobson is a '90s entrepreneur-aggressive, upbeat and fiercely independent. He was a victim of layoffs in 1991 who bounced back from what might have been adversity through self-reliance. But, that's not the story. Dobson's tale is an unfinished lesson about black dreams.

The urge to run a business gripped Dobson at age 10. His father, whose name is also Warren E. Dobson, worked in the General Motors parts division in Flint, Michigan. The job was better than average for an African American in 1969, but the young Dobson's eyes were glued on the enterprise more than the man.

"All along, I considered that he was working in a business," he said in a recent telephone interview from his Chicago headquarters. "I guess I knew it was not necessarily his own business," says Dobson, recalling his 10-year-old mindset. "But it was a business."

Buying, selling and merchandising fascinated the 10-year-old and stirred a deep hunger for independence and success. Yet, youthful dreams sometimes meet detours. In high school, Dobson found a new kind of freedom and much success in running. His love for track quickly broadened into a talent, perhaps more, a gift. The boy's speed and skill on the course opened the door to another dream-college.

Dobson said he hoped to fulfill both his dreams. The University of Michigan gave him a track scholarship. He wanted a business major. Then he ran into reality.

The young runner was forced to choose between a scholarship and a long-time dream. He found out that the time and commitments of college athletics would not allow both.

"I knew long-term I wanted to go into business, even when I decided not to pursue an undergraduate degree in business," he says. "I had a big interest in people so I decided at that time to major in psychology. When I made that decision, I also decided that I was going to go back and get my graduate degree."

Dobson's track career was stellar. He was a two-time team captain and an All American. His main event was the 400-meter, which he ran very well. At the 1980 Olympic trails, he missed the cut by 1,200th of a second. So, graduate school was next.

He left Atlanta University in 1983 with an MBA and a thirst for experience. After a few years in the marketing and technical management training programs for the Whirlpool Corporation, the world's largest major appliance maker, Dobson found himself assigned to answering 800 lines in consumer affairs. He wanted to be in marketing.

"Those who typically make it to the top typically make it to through the marketing program," he explains. Dobson describes the telephone room as the company bone yard, a quiet place for those whose careers are dead or dying. "People ended up there for years and years and years," he says.

His call counts were among the lowest. Instead of putting energy into the 800 lines, Dobson decided to respond to some needs he saw within the department. "For instance, I wrote the department's first policies and procedures manual," he says. "They never had one. It's a formal document now in that department."

Dobson says, "I was the first person ever promoted out of that department." He became a plastics buyer in purchasing. "That's where I wanted to go," he says.

In a sense, the Dobson family's story had come full circle. Warren Dobson's new job was buying parts for washers, dryers and dishwashers for five plants. Yet, he worked on a scale his father might never have imagined. "I had the responsibility of 50 and 60 million dollars worth of purchasing," he says.

After two years and three months, he took his knowledge of plastics to Performance Concepts, a Chicago company that supplied McDonald's promotional cups and happy meal containers. He was a purchasing project manager for three years. Then, after a merger, the company cut back. "That's why they kicked me out," Dobson jokes.

One of the lessons Dobson's life teaches is that bad things can happen to people who are good at what they do. However, not every misfortune is bad luck. "I decided I was going to take a vacation," he says.

While driving to visit an uncle in Georgia, Dobson says, he was seized by the image of a plastic cup emblazoned with kente cloth. Traditionally, a tribal ceremonial material hand-woven on a horizontal treadle loom, kente, which means "basket," comes in various colors, sizes and designs. The colorful patterns often worn during very important social and religious occasions in Ghana and throughout the African diaspora is popular with African Americans, particularly those in big cities. Lovers of African heritage in this country know that in Ghana the designs on kente cloth represent history, philosophy, ethics, oral literature, moral values, social code of conduct, religious beliefs, political thought and aesthetic principles.

"I really wanted to go into manufacturing, but I didn't have the money to do that," Dobson says. "I asked myself what existing product is out there that I can modify and bring to the market. I started working on a cup. I knew cups inside and out. I thought about what I could put on a cup and sell. Well, the Kente cloth stuff was pretty hot."

Dobson created the Kente Kup, a trademarked name. George Lottier, who had once been a junior partner in a plastics business, helped him push the idea into production in 1992. Dobson Products was born.

Dobson says he tried a couple other designs, too. One of them was a Chicago Bulls championship cup. The Kente cloth pattern was the big hit. McDonald's loved it.

The company used Kente Kups in Atlanta and New York for three years. "Then," Dobson recalls, "I think it hit Houston, mostly up and down the East Coast, and into Florida."

He says millions of cups have been sold, but success had its price. Ownership requires long days and hard work. "For the first three or four years, I was by myself," he says. He works with two part-time employees now. They do it all-design, market and distribute the product. The payoff is freedom.

"You don't have any limitations as far as creativity," Dobson says. "Having limitations on creativity limits everything else." Most of his clients tap the African-American market. Some even end up in mass market operations such as Marshall Fields or Luxury Linens. "A general market store may have an Afro-centric section, or they may bring it in for Black History Month or something like that," he says. "Or, it may just be a general market store where the buyer just likes the product, and they bring it in and sell it just like any other item."

After the Kente Kup, Dobson expanded the designs to include symbols for black fraternities and sororities. His most recent catalog includes products that commemorate the Million Man March and the Million Woman March. Now there's some dinnerware in development. Dobson said the plates and bowls will either be porcelain or stoneware.

"I did a test a year and a half ago, and it was porcelain," he says. The product passed the test. Now the entrepreneur waits to see if black designs on dinnerware meets a demand. Dobson says a good product should sell out within six months. The pressure is to choose correctly. The Michigan youth whose life-long dream was business ownership welcomes the challenge.

"I have my own responsibility," Dobson says. "I set my own authority. I also determine how much freedom I have. Which isn't much but, it's my own. I don't have to deal with any politics. If a customer does not like what I do, or I don't like the customer, I don't have to sell to them. That's a decision that I make, and not have to sweat about it." Visit the Web site at www.dobson.com.

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