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Dallas Entrepreneurs of the Year 2013

They’ve made it through the tough times—and now they’re reaping the rewards. The finalists in this year’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year program prove they have staying power.
By D Magazine |
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Photography by Stanton Stephens

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Photography by Stanton Stephens

David R. Weinreb
The Howard Hughes Corp. // CEO

At age 9, David Weinreb was earning a six-figure income from TV commercial work. By the time he was 16, he had built his first New York condo.

His dad cosigned the loan back then, but Weinreb is the one signing the checks now. He left Dallas-based TPMC Realty Corp. three years ago to take over an entity spun off by bankrupt General Growth Properties.

“There were no systems in place,” says Weinreb, who kicked in $15 million of his own money. “We had to create the brains and organs of the organization.”

That company, The Howard Hughes Corp., owns a portfolio of high-profile properties including The Woodlands in Houston, South Street Seaport in Manhattan, Riverwalk Marketplace in New Orleans, and Summerlin in Las Vegas, which initially was acquired by Howard Hughes—the famous aviator and film maker—in the 1950s.

Weinreb expects to have $1.2 billion worth of new projects under construction this year. He’s also grown the company’s work force to more than 900 from 173. Revenue topped $391 million in 2012, compared to $142.71 million in 2010.

A natural entertainer, Weinreb’s been known to belt out a song while sitting at the grand piano in his office. “It’s part of the fun of a controlling name like Howard Hughes and all his greatness,” he says.
—Karen Nielsen


John Lawlor
Vestcom International Inc. // Chairman and CEO

Little Rock, Ark.-based Vestcom International Inc. hired John Lawlor four years ago as its chief commercial officer, but the company’s board quickly saw his potential. By November 2009, he was named chairman and CEO.

Founded in 1985, Vestcom offered retailers an outsourcing option for printing shelf-edge price labels. Lawlor saw the opportunity to diversify into data-driven shelf-edge communications and specialized marketing services. For example, Vestcom now offers retailers the ability to share FDA-based nutritional information at the store shelf.

In the space of 24 months, Lawlor put the company on a growth trajectory of nearly 20 percent per year and increased profit by nearly 50 percent. ¶ Along with the success came some tough decisions. Lawlor replaced virtually all members of the management team. He also established a culture of continuous improvement in the business and personal lives of Vestcom’s 700 employees. The new culture focuses heavily on wellness with financial incentives for meeting health-related goals.

Lawlor communicates to employees through regular “state of the union” addresses and a monthly newsletter. Vestcom was a portfolio company of The Stephens Group from 2007 until its divestiture in 2012.

Thomas Hedrick, operating partner of The Stephens Group, is a Lawlor fan. “John’s entrepreneurial leadership places him at the very top of a list of over 30 CEO’s with whom I’ve worked during my career,” Hedrick says.
—Kerry Curry


Steve Horne
Wingspan Portfolio Advisors LLC // President and CEO

Steve Horne founded Carrollton-based Wingspan Portfolio Advisors in 2008 to address the foreclosure crisis.

The company reaches out on behalf of mortgage servicers to borrowers in default on their home loans to resolve the default.

“The plan was always to go large—to serve the needs of larger financial institutions,” he says.

Horne first laid the groundwork. Then came the growth.

In 2011 alone, Wingspan grew from 300 to 1,500 employees. It now has more than 2,000 workers—along with several of the big clients Horne coveted in those early days, including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.

Technology, strong management, and robust employee training have been key for the sensitive work, Horne says.

“Dallas natives are generally almost completely unaware of how central Dallas is to the [mortgage] servicing industry,” he says. “This is the Silicon Valley of servicing.” As the foreclosure crisis wanes, Wingspan has diversified into other segments, including the research of oil and gas mineral rights and leases.

Horne, an attorney by training, said litigation experience—which requires intense preparation—also helped put Wingspan on solid ground.

“You have to have a plan. Then you need to listen. The industry will tell you what it wants to do,” Horne says. “We went where the clients’ needs were, and it turned out to be a very successful strategy.”
—Kerry Curry


Tim Houlne                     
Working Solutions // CEO

When companies rushed to send call centers abroad, Tim Houlne stayed home. Instead, he joined Plano-based Working Solutions and its home-based contact agent concept in 2000. Then the technology bubble burst and, as the bubble deflated, a massive offshoring push gained steam.

It was a tough time. A second mortgage on their house and credit card debt propelled Houlne and his wife, Kim, the company’s founder, forward.

A refuse-to-lose attitude helped Houlne address obstacles like credit-card security and oversight of home-based workers. Today, Working Solutions is a market leader with clients that include Office Depot and Travelocity. It expects revenue to grow 56 percent this year over last, due in part to new, large clients.

“A traditional call center operates with controls, and we operate with empowerment,” Houlne says. “We identify, recruit, and hire the right individuals and then empower them to get the results. It’s a different mindset.”

Working Solutions isn’t limited by physical proximity to a call center for labor. It recruits the best and brightest nationwide. It also concentrates on complex transactions that are difficult to offshore, and diversified into additional lines of business, such as software as a service. Its agents use email, chat, phone, and social media to communicate.

Working Solutions has more than 100,000 freelance home agents and 330 full-time employees.
—Kerry Curry


Rick Spurr                      
Zix Corp. // Chairman and CEO

Workers want to use their own mobile devices to access their work email and attachments. But this presents a dilemma for employers.
Do they allow employees to download email and attachments on their smartphones, tablets, and laptops? That can mean sensitive information getting lost or stolen. Ergo, the businesses must enforce strict controls on how workers use their personal wireless gadgets—something nobody likes. Or do the companies require the workers to carry company-issued mobile devices? That route is costly and inconvenient.

Enter Dallas-based Zix Corp., whose chairman and CEO, Rick Spurr, says he has a better way.

The 155-employee email security business, which did $43.4 million in revenue in 2012, will unveil this year one of the largest technology developments in its 15-year history. Called ZixOne, the system allows employees to use their own wireless gadgets to view key corporate email and attachments.

But Zix’s technology prevents those emails and attachments from actually downloading to the employees’ gadgets. That keeps the information in the companies’ hands, and thus out of harm’s way, Spurr says.

The innovation could have a huge impact on Zix’s bottom line. “This more than doubles the addressable market for the company,” Spurr says. —Jeff Bounds


Donald S. Freeman
The Freeman Co. // Chairman
Joe Popolo
The Freeman Co. // CEO
Carrie Freeman Parsons
The Freeman Co. // Vice Chairman

Three generations of the Freeman family have guided the company from humble beginnings as a regional event decorations provider into a worldwide provider of integrated services for trade shows, exhibitions, and events.

The company was founded in 1927 by Donald “Buck” Freeman, who led it for 37 years before his son, Donald “Don” Freeman Jr., joined him. Don took the helm in 1972, creating an employee stock ownership program and guiding the company through some of its most challenging years. He remains chairman, but passed the torch to his daughter, Carrie Freeman Parsons, who serves as vice chairman; and his son-in-law, Joe Popolo, who became chief executive in 2008.

The company posted revenue of $1.6 billion last year and expects to hit $1.66 billion this year and $1.8 billion next year.

In the last decade, leadership has transformed Freeman away from a logistics company into a one-stop provider of experiential marketing. Freeman invested in a new sales organization and technology, acquired creative and strategic agencies and retooled its customer services companywide. It also recently purchased a United Kingdom-based event services firm, which allows for international expansion.

“Don gives great guidance to Carrie and me,”  says Popolo, who handles financial operations,while Carries manages employees and marketing. “We’re following the path he laid out. We make a nice one-two punch.”
—Karen Nielsen



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