Inside, you find the usual warren of filing cabinets, cubicles and offices. But employees also enjoy a museum's worth of ornaments and oddities from around the world. For example, a French tapestry covers part of a wall in the director of marketing's office, A Polynesian-style Tiki bar stands in the conference room, where a meeting has just been held to introduce the staff to a new product line. An assortment of Oriental clocks, Art Deco sculptures of females and European porcelain figures line the rows of cubicles where employees sit receiving orders. In the 90,000-square-foot warehouse, forklifts move amid boxes full of fanciful Italian walking sticks and an imposing six-foot giraffe.
Expect the unexpected: That principle applies not only to Design Toscano's catalogs of art and decorative objects, but to its president as well. The academic credentials of 46-year-old Michael Stopka'78 CBA at first glance don't seem to match the man who runs a catalog operation that offers replicated antiques and art for the home and garden. His first job out of college was that of a systems analyst. However, his office worker lifestyle provided no clues that he would some day start a multimillion-dollar business and travel the world collecting art and antiques with his wife, Marilyn.
Back then, Michael and Marilyn enjoyed the occasional trip to Europe on free tickets bestowed by his employer. "We would stay at an average hotel and have a great time," he says.
To adhere to their limited travel budget, Michael's lifelong love of geography subject he studied at UIC in between business courses-came into play.
"I used to map out those trips like a general mapping out a campaign," he says. "As a kid, I enjoyed studying maps. When I was in fourth grade, my family took a trip to Oklahoma and they let me pick the route to follow."
During a visit with Marilyn to a wellknown landmark, Michael had an inspiration. "I was standing in front of Notre Dame Cathedral at Point 0, which is supposed to be the exact center of France," he recalls. "You're supposed to stand on that point and make a wish. It was midnight, it was summer, and the boats were heading down the Seine. I said, 'Feel this? This is what Americans love about Europe. If we could develop a catalog, this is the kind of experience I would put in it.'
While bicycling with his friend Fabio Orlandi and a graphic artist and art school graduate named Steve Pseno, Michael brought up the idea of creating a catalog filled with European art and ornamental objects.
"Fabio told me he had connections with a relative who was allowed to make casts of real sculptures by Michelangelo and other famous sculptors. His cast of the 'Venus de Milo' was so good, you could see the crack in the stomach. I then realized you could have historical replicas that were very close to the original work of art," says Michael.
"Fabio's family had a factory that made such replicas, but they sold them to other businesses. It occurred to me that someone could sell these products [to consumers directly] on a nationwide basis. I said, 'Let me take your catalog and put my cover on it and market to consumers.' We started advertising in the back of a few magazines."
The rest, as they say, is history. Today, Design Toscano, which Stopka first ran from his basement after making an initial $6,000 investment, has four retail stores in Chicago and suburbs, and mails 19 million catalogs each year. Despite the slow economy in 2002, Design Toscano enjoyed its best year to date, posting revenues of $33 million.
Stopka obviously enjoys putting his UIC College of Business education to use as he refines his product line, trying to reduce costs and maximize margin on each product in order to thrive in these uncertain economic times. For budget-conscious Americans, buying a bit of history and classic art at an affordable price gives them instant sophistication, and a chance to own something exceptional that can impress friends and neighbors.
Stopka knows his customers well. After all, he's not far removed from their experience himself. He and Marilyn have three young children, and they live in a Northwest Chicago suburb where one of their stores is located.
King Tutankhamen's Egyptian Throne Chair
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"Americans are looking for European style at a reasonable price," he says. "You always want what you don't have. That's why our products work. Europeans want American stuff — cowboy stuff, for instance — and they love American music. We like Europe because of its history and pedigree."
Design Toscano's customers are upper-middle-class. They can't afford to purchase original art or high-end antiques. "Our customers' annual income ranges from $40,000 to $100,000," explains Stopka. "They want the look of an antique, but not the cost." Hence, the reproductions.
While Design Toscano offers an increasing number of original art pieces, most of its products are replications of valuable, original gargoyles, lawn ornaments and furnishings. The company's name is derived from the source of the statuary it sold in the early years-Tuscany, Italy.
Now, few of its reproductions come from Italy. The originals are shipped to China, where factory workers cast them using resin, then hand paint them in meticulous detail. The Chinese manufacturers can produce at a speed and price that the European shops can't match.
Design Toscano's customers also want things they can't find at a typical retailer such as Wal-Mart or Sears. That's where Michael and Marilyn's personal selection comes in. They receive invaluable assistance from Pseno, who worked for Land's End, and whose graphic arts background has blended well with Stopka's business background.
Pseno is now the company's vice president of merchandising and the
creative division.
He and Michael now do most of the purchasing for Design Toscano. "If you asked me the difference between Art Nouveau and Pre-Raphaelite, I couldn't tell you," Michael explains. "Steve does all that."
The objects that enliven Design Toscano's catalogs are drawn from many cultures and traditions, not just European. In the early years, the company was known for its gargoyles, copied from the castles of Europe. Later on, it bought and reproduced cla sic statues. Now, it might buy bronzes from Thailand; Egyptian artifacts derived from the funerary objects of the pharaohs; and statues and paintings with a mystical, magical air that recalls the legends of King Arthur or The Lord of the Rings books.
How did a native of the working-class Chicago neighborhood, Jefferson Park, and a business major develop such an interest in art and other cultures? Stopka points to his love of maps and geography. Besides being filled with statues and artifacts from around the world, his office has a wall lined with maps. On this day, even his necktie bears a map of downtown Chicago.
"In hindsight, I wish I had taken English and the humanities at UIC," he says. "I especially enjoyed the geography courses I took with Sum Soot. At that time, UIC had just received a grant to do interpretation of aerial photos. It was very instructive."
Soot, who is now associate professor emeritus in the geography program and director emeritus of the Urban Transportation Center, remembers Stopka well. "One of the intriguing things about Mike was that he was an innovative person who was always thinking beyond traditional academic boundaries. I have always felt that an important part of a retail business is understanding where your customers and products are coming from, and his interest was evident in that area."
Geography plays a central role in developing a successful business, says Soot. "A one-word definition of geography is location: where to locate a business, where your customers are. That was a very seminal research area when Mike was here, and he developed an interest in it."
Today, Michael Stopka is finding ways to conduct business overseas amid a turbulent political landscape. Business partners from Indonesia are reluctant to travel to the United States. As a result, Mike is considering videoconferencing with them. He has faith in the American consumer, however.
"For many years, I was more aggressive in marketing than I should have
been. I've discovered that it's easy to make sales, but difficult to make a
profit. Our losses were already high going into Labor Day 2001. Then
after 9/11, sales literally died. Catalog revenues were off 20 to 30 percent.
The hard times forced me to take a more conservative approach. Last
year, we made more money in an off year than we did in the last three
years combined. Thank God the U.S. consumers came back."
