In 1931, in the village of Grafton, Wis., a man named Frank G. Mayer saw the future through the smoke of his cigar. At the peak of The Great Depression, few could've projected the tenacious sign painter's eventual success. Now his name, his family and the company he founded, Frank Mayer and Associates, are known around the world as cutting-edge merchandising innovators.

Mayer inspired a sense of respect that endures today. Some of his old employees still call him Mister Mayer. While his management style inspired the formal title, he was a down-to-earth proprietor. When something needed to be done in the shop, he pulled coveralls over his suit and went to work.

Mister Mayer had the get ‘r done attitude before it was a pop catch phrase. He carried disks in his pocket that he personally silk-screened with the word "tuit." When an employee would say "I'll do it when I get around to it" Mayer pulled a disk from his pocket and said "There, you've got a round tuit."

Executive vice president of sales and marketing Allen Buchholz has worked 38 years for Frank Mayer and Associates. Buccholz recounted the senior Mayer's exploits in a phone interview.

"Anyone around here knew him as this bald, cigar-smoking, five foot nine, five foot eight man," Buccholz said. "He loved cigars. We were joking about it last night. It seems so strange today how strict smoking policies are wherever you go. In those days, Mr. Mayer walked around a printing plant with a big cigar. He never burned the place down, but he always had that Churchill in his mouth."

Buccholz described Mayer on the eve of a 75th anniversary open house — much like the open houses the company held in its early days, when Mayer invited the village to see his company. It was at one of those that Buccholz, still a kid who came with his dad, realized he wanted to work there. At that time, the company housed the largest four-color copy camera in the world and it amazed the boy. A few years later, he worked for Mayer.

"He was a very energetic man," Buccholz said. "He was always thinking. He liked to be hands-on. He was not a guy who sat on his presidential office. He was always down in the paint room. He was on the press. He was in the photo department.

"He was one of these men who didn't worry about competitors. He would help a competitor. He belonged to all the associations. He would share information. He had the attitude of ‘If we all have quality and we all have strength, the industry has strength.'"

Foresight and flexibility

Mayer also had flexibility. He embraced change appropriately. Buccholz remembers when a salesman came back from meeting with Ampex, an electronics chain that sold Hi-Fi's and 8-tracks, and Mayer made a decision that forged the company's core business for decades to come.

"When a salesman came in 1968 and said ‘I was just on the west coast and I tried to sell a sign to a guy at Ampex and they said they need an in-store display and the guys in the shop have lathes and saws. Can we do that?'" Buccholz said. "Mr. Mayer said ‘Sure.'"

By the 1980s, Frank Mayer and Associates contracted with a new video game company called Nintendo to deploy their in-store demonstration fixtures. Frank G. Mayer's grandson, Mike Mayer, remembered packing the displays while he was in college.

Mayer's Familymeds Internet Kiosk allows consumers the option to request a pharmacy service online directly from a doctor's office or clinic.

The company also dabbled in a new idea: letting the customers use in-store computers to service themselves. The early attempts included a POS machine that recorded sales on a tape that technicians retrieved once a month — processing orders more slowly than ordering through a catalogue.

"Almost 20 years ago, we had several clients who were starting to understand the value of the computer in marketing," Buccholz said. "We started a little department here called ipop, all lower case, and it was way ahead of its time and it failed. But it was doing things like that, looking ahead and not being afraid to make mistakes. We dabbled in that and dissolved that little group, only to find 10 years later the price of computers came down drastically. More people felt comfortable using computers at the point of purchase and the point of information."

Good managers supporting good employees

According to Business Week two thirds of family businesses fail passing from the first to second generation. Frank Mayer and Associates is in the successful minority. Frank G. passed it to Frank W. who handed the reigns to Mike Mayer, who started out cutting grass and is, today, company president.

"When I was twelve years old, our focus was on screen printing," Mike Mayer said. "We were, in essence, a manufacturer. We were also very heavily into point-of-sale and point-of-purchase, the creation and design of those displays as well. We are now really a creative engineering, design and production facility and we subcontract all the manufacturing. We're very heavily into kiosks and into permanent display and branding."

The business kept growing. Buccholz estimated the company has doubled in the last 20 years, to about 100 employees. What used to be a painting shop is now an office suite. Assembly has been moved to a 200,000 square foot facility bought ten years ago that now houses a separate manufacturing business.

"The (office) atmosphere is team meetings, constantly, on a day to day basis," Mike Mayer said. "The team gets together and talks about the objectives of the project, solving those issues. The creative process happens on a daily basis. Seven industrial designers are coming up with the different looks concepts. Model makers are building the prototypes. Our technology manager is looking at the computer equipment, sourcing different options that would work best with the applications.

The company offers workers a variety of awards and promotes from within. They encourage creativity. Buccholz remembered serving in the National Guard during Vietnam, the company paid the difference between his civilian wage and his military pay while in camp.

"(Frank G. Mayer's) attitude was ‘If you're doing something for your country, I am doing something for you,'" he said.

A great legacy

Every time a kid touches a flashing video game kiosk in a Wal-Mart store for the first time, the cigar-puffing entrepreneur from Grafton, Wis. touches another life.

Frank G. Mayer died in 1993 at his retirement home in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was almost 79. His family held a memorial in Grafton, at St. Joseph's Catholic Church.

"It was quite a large service," Buccholz said. "Every employee and past employee, I remember a group of us that have been around for a long time. It wasn't all old-timers. It was a group of us who knew him. We met out in the parking lot of the church and we had a big pocket full of Churchill cigars and we sat out there telling stories about him. It wasn't a morbid, sad thing. It was a celebration of somebody's life."

And while much of the company changes, its core values endure. In the 1970s, when huge belt buckles were chic, Mister Mayer took up amateur gemology. He made silver and turquoise belt buckles with the company logo on the front. That year, those salespeople who reached a certain goal received those buckles in a ceremony — and the title of vice president. The men were so proud, they wore them to the ceremony every year and the buckle became the company's most prized award.

Today, the logo is different and the buckles are presented on a mahogany plaque in deference to the women who later won and didn't want to wear an enormous western belt buckle. The amount it takes to win one increased considerably, but it still comes with a vice presidency.

And when Mike Mayer talks business he still talks about listening, innovating, partnering and adapting.