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This is Fred Ball for Zions Bank, speaking on business.
Mike Robson felt frustrated after graduating from college with a business degree and discovering at the time there wasn't a big demand for those skills. He managed to land a job but the pay wasn't much and the work left him feeling unfulfilled.
So he went back to school for an MBA. There he met a couple of students who held day jobs at a company that supplied security and safekeeping systems to the banking industry. On one occasion, the students mentioned that their company was looking for a way to produce a box that would house and secure some mechanical components for the ATMs it serviced. As they described their needs, Mike realized he could build it for them. So he did. The box worked, and with that, Mike believed he had found a lucrative business opportunity and a new career.
He invested all of savings to establish the business. But to his dismay, eight months passed without a single call for work. Mike, however, didn't stop thinking of the possibilities, and it wasn't long after that he recognized a need to not just build parts for ATMs but to service them as well. And with a few phone calls, Mike Robson soon found himself in business running ATA Services.
Like many entrepreneurs, he started in his home. By the next year, his company was making $220,000. These days, Mike's company, ATA Services, offers everything for servicing ATMs--exterior maintenance, restorations, cleaning, custom signage, even complete rebranding work. And it's work that's done onsite at ATMs nationwide. Mike hires technicians who live all over the country. Mike told me that although his company is based here in Utah, most of his clients are banks back East, one of which is the fifth-largest ATM owner in the world.
In just five years, ATA Services has already been named one of Utah's fastest growing companies. Last year, the company earned $2.7 million. It's an amount that Mike says will probably put ATA Services among the nation's 500 fastest growing companies.
For Zions Bank, I'm Fred Ball. I'm speaking on business.
