JOE HOWELL NEWS SENTINEL Carlos Penn, left, a Web designer, works on the soon-to-be-launched Web page for James Agee Park, as Doug McDaniel, Bounce enterprise director, makes suggestions at the Tribe One building in East Knoxville on Monday.
By CYNTHIA YELDELL, yeldellc@knews.com October 30, 2005
An interest in rap music and a clever ploy from a nonprofit group lured Carlos Penn into a business for which he designs Web sites for companies throughout Knoxville.
Penn, now 23, was in trouble at school when he was younger and ended up "on the streets doing the average things a person that doesn't know any better does."
Now he's one of several former "at-risk" youths who are running two businesses that boast clients such as Yee Haw Industries, Whirlpool and the University of Tennessee's Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Tribe One, a nonprofit organization founded 10 years ago to help Knoxville youths by providing spiritual growth and development, has added a business arm to its program that teaches job skills and financial empowerment.
The group's screen-printing business, Boom Boom Industries, started small with the support of other local businesses and now stands alone with a printing shop at the Tribe One offices on Magnolia Avenue.
Bounce, Tribe One's "nerve center" where young people learn computer skills, now has moved into the Web design business, creating sites for several local companies. It also recently began operating online sales of birdhouses for Dalen Products, a West Knoxville manufacturer of lawn and garden products.
Tribe One's goal is to teach young people business skills and help them learn to be entrepreneurs, said Angel Romero, enterprise director of Boom Boom.
Penn is one of two paid interns at Tribe One, for which he has designed about 15 Web sites, including one for the Marco Institute.
He got involved with Tribe One when he met a man making music at Tribe One's Magnolia Sound Studio.
In exchange for learning computer skills, Penn got free time in the music studio. Tribe One often uses the studio as a draw to get youth interested in other activities.
"I thought I was just going to be doing this to get access to free studio time," Penn said. "I started doing it, and I didn't know the advantages of it."
Romero, another former "at-risk" youth, oversees Tribe One's screen-printing business. She said she has turned her life around and hopes Tribe One's business programs will help others do the same.
"Young people need to find ways to make money where they don't end up in jail or dead," said Romero, a former gang member. "Coming from the streets straight to a job, they would get fired. We take them from an unordered environment to a life that has order and discipline."
Boom Boom's growth The screen-printing business started in 2001 with the help of Bob Riehl, who has owned a screen- printing operation, American Sportswear, in Maynardville for the past 30 years.
Riehl brought Romero and others affiliated with Tribe One to his shop and taught them how to print shirts. He also sat down with Romero and mapped out target markets such as churches and school groups and mentored her in answering customer questions.
Boom Boom's shirts were printed at Riehl's shop until last year, when Tribe One purchased its own equipment.
Riehl says he is proud he helped Boom Boom get off the ground and doesn't consider it competition because his focus is selling souvenir shirts in Gatlinburg.
"There is enough business for everybody," Riehl said, adding that seeing the group on its own and gaining repeat business is a "dream come true."
His role now is as an adviser to check on the business regularly and put out fires if any problems develop.
Boom Boom gets about four or five new orders each week and has created shirts for groups such as the Society of Women Engineers at the University of Tennessee and Yee Haw Industries, a Knoxville printer.
The company is printing Yee Haw's "Knoxville Girl" and "Tennessee Stud" shirts, which are sold at the Knoxville Visitor's Center, at Yee Haw, Magpies Bakery and Disc Exchange.
Julie Belcher, co-owner of Yee Haw Industrial Letterpress, said Boom Boom has printed 150 dozen of the two shirt designs in the past six months.
Within the next year, Boom Boom plans to continue its growth by developing a brand and selling its own line of shirts.
Boom Boom operates with one intern, one production manager and one administrative assistant. Romero said Tribe One has three "at-risk" youths on staff.
She said the group doesn't think everyone involved on the business side of the organization will go into screen-printing or computer jobs but that they will learn business skills.
Designing with Bounce In June, Tribe One's second business, Bounce, started a partnership with Dalen Products, marketing and selling Dalen's birdhouses through the Bounce-created Web site classicbirdhouse.com.
In the past, Dalen has sold its products only to large retailers such as Wal-Mart and hadn't done any direct-to-consumer sales.
John Case, Dalen's director of operations, said the partnership with Bounce allows the company to sell items that have been slow sellers at the retail stores and gather information on the market.
"What's attractive about it is we can venture into a market we haven't explored before without a lot of capital expenditure," Case said.
When an order comes into the Web site, people at Bounce check with Dalen to make sure the item is in stock. Dalen sends the product to Bounce, which handles all customer interactions, such as issuing receipts, and ships items to customers.
Bounce also markets the products through online publications.
Since the partnership began this summer, birdhouses have been sold to customers in more than 20 states, according to Doug McDaniel, who oversees Bounce.
Case said birdhouses haven't sold well to retail customers but that the products could be something consumers want without the stores realizing it.
Case said the venture isn't meant to compete with those retailers selling Dalen's products, but it gives the company a chance to learn about customers.
"The big thing we are trying to do is gather information," Case said. "It helps confirm or deny if there is a specific market for our products to the Web consumer."
Chris Woodhull, who founded Tribe One with the late Danny Mayfield in 1993, said that in the future, Tribe One is looking to further develop the music side of its business by selling studio time and also has plans to increase its number of interns from two to 12.
Woodhull said he has been able to get companies interested in Tribe One because business leaders want to lend their expertise to help young people. Likewise, he said, young people are interested in learning about business.
"So many of the young people are fascinated by running a business," Woodhull said. "They run businesses off the street that have not been successful, and there is an entrepreneurial spirit."
Business writer Cynthia Yeldell may be reached at 865-342-6320.
