This Atlas Never Shrugs

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Atlas Sign Industries builds and cultivates trust, making a difference along the way

This is how exemplary businesses fly to the heights of their industries: They show up and do the work. That direct and deceptively simple imperative is the engine of Atlas Sign Industries, whose marquee customers include some of the best known global brands, including Home Depot, Citibank, and Starbucks.

That brand trust began as a family operation in a 2,500-square-foot warehouse in the days when signs were made largely by hand. Today, the family owned and operated enterprise has an international reach, with offices in Florida, North Carolina, and Texas, as well as remote operations in Chicago.

The devastation of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 boosted the Adinolfe family’s conviction that it was time to grow. Jim Adinolfe was already in his garage and, as the entrepreneur he has always been, decided he would bend neon for all the signs that were out. He was well on his way to success when the hurricane struck. This is where the company started its growth, successfully providing installation services and light manufacturing for National level companies. Jim Adinolfe had no doubt that he too could be National, one year later he was.

As company COO Dusty Adinolfe told BOSS, “I was part of a young professionals group and had a lot of contacts, so I partnered with my husband to make the company more of a growing company rather than a mom-and-pop operation. We started getting a computer network, hiring HR management, and we started to get extremely busy.”

At that point, Adinolfe decided to jump to the executive side of the business to ensure it would run well and reach its potential. “We got more employees, set up the infrastructure, and in the midst, Republic Security Bank acquired First Union, and they decided to become Wachovia Bank. ... We hired a great branding team and our company essentially helped create the brand for the Wachovia-Wells Fargo merger. We then fell into a couple of hundred bank teardowns and rebuilds, we had Citibank, Home Depot, and Cracker Barrel. And we just kept growing and growing.”

If that sounds too easy, it is. As Adinolfe stressed, “The motto of the company is, ‘We never tell a client no and nothing is impossible.’” The Atlas approach requires not just a relentless dedication to brand representation, but the work of coordinated teams willing to move at a moment’s notice to execute to perfection.

Consider this situation Atlas faced at the newly built Jaguar Stadium (now TIAA Bank Field), home to the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. “They were opening in two weeks when they were notified by their current sign company that they weren’t going to make the grand opening deadline for all their sponsor signs, so we dropped everything we were doing and pushed some of our current clients back, obviously with permission, and sent our guys down there to get the technical training they needed to work at the stadium, built the signs, and got everything up on time.”

Atlas routinely slashes turnaround times by allocating teams where and when needed. Last year, Atlas opened a facility in Dallas to better accommodate a single West Coast customer. “We do work for Starbucks all over the world, and we’re always challenged when we go back every year because they always come back to us saying we're too far from Seattle to be able to ship and be competitive in pricing. We went into the Dallas area to make them a little more comfortable with that; however, we still ship from our Florida location, we use team drivers, and it costs the same price.”

When it comes to disaster recovery, Atlas is in a great position to respond quickly and get businesses back on their feet. “Home Depot, banks, and grocery stores are the three most important places that need to be able to function after a storm. Without food and water, people starve, without Home Depot and Lowe’s, to fix and cover stuff, it's going to make things worse.” Atlas partnered with Home Depot’s Early Alert disaster training team to become FEMA Disaster Recovery First Responders. It was then we decided it only made sense to create the Atlas disaster recovery team.

When a storm gets close, Atlas moves into action. “We have a huge RV bus and three crane trucks that station themselves somewhere on the borderline of where a storm is about to hit. Once the storm has passed through, when no one can go through but the police and FEMA, we are allowed to get through. We're allowed to take down stuff, move stuff, clean up debris, send back pictures, and then come back and get it all fixed and quickly as possible. We have an entire build team that comes in when we have to do disaster recovery and it's a full-time job.”

Atlas is currently leading a nonprofit organization, Project Bahama Strong, (www.projectbahamastrong.org) to raise funds and rebuild the islands after the devastation of Hurricane Dorian. “The people of the Bahamas are dear to our hearts,” Adinolfe said. “The government's not helping them there so we've reached out to all of our suppliers here to make donations, and they've donated supplies every day. So every day we have a cruise ship going with pallets and pallets of supplies to each of these islands, and Saturday we're going to fly over to the worst-hit island and hand out hugs and mugs. In the mugs there will be $20 for people to buy food.” Now that’s a company Atlas himself would be proud to hold on his shoulders.