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Real Estate Sign Catalog 2011

IT BEGAN WITH A GOAL!

In 1981, Ted Lawrence had a decision to make.

Should he continue working in the corporate business world and move his family to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania? Or should he pursue his own venture and return to the state of Iowa? His decision would take him down a path he hadn’t envisioned.

Ted had worked with Westinghouse Corporation as an executive for PLAN, (Personalized Learning According to Needs). Westinghouse wanted him to move to Pittsburg, but he preferred to stay in the Midwest. He decided to move to Iowa to develop his own educational venture.

Be Inventive

While developing this education business, he put on his “inventor cap” and designed several new products.

Before joining Westinghouse, Ted had been a successful football coach. His winning high school teams landed him a spot in the Iowa Coaches Hall of Fame. Later he became an assistant coach at the University of Iowa. So he had some ideas on football training. Ted designed several football training aids including TNT (a quarterback timing device) and Thunderfoot (a kicking and punting tool).

He also invented the Super-Dunk, a mini-basketball goal. At the time, there were no products like this available, so Ted and his wife Shirley started Productive Products to market these items. Based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, PPI originally sourced out the screenprinting for these backboards. Sales were brisk, as PPI was selling goals to sporting goods stores and universities all over the country.

“During the summer, I would help with shipping and delivery”, recalls John Lawrence. “We were selling alot of Super-Dunks to major universities for summer basketball camps. One summer, I got to meet head coaches Dale Brown at LSU and Norm Stewart at the University of Missouri. That was pretty cool for a high school senior!”

PPI Emerged

As the demand for printing increased, Ted and Shirley started their own screenprinting operation. Ted began to call on real estate companies in Iowa and PPI began to grow quickly.
They moved the business to Benton, Illinois (near Ted’s hometown of West Frankfort, IL) in 1987. They convinced their daughter Sherri to develop the graphics department and began to specialize in custom real estate signs.

Ted and Shirley’s youngest son, John, joined the company in 1989 after he graduated from Drake University. “Mom and Dad asked me to see how I liked it for a year, and now 20 years later, here I am still selling signs!”

So this statement holds true for Productive Products like many businesses, but for PPI more literally ...it all began with a goal

(a Super-Dunk goal)!