OKC business owner helps entrepreneurs
Oklahoma City entrepreneur Michael D. Morrison was 32 years old before he shook off the “quiet” label he’d been given, and lived into, since he was a kid.
“I got angry with myself for living by everyone else’s agenda for me,” said Morrison, 49. “And that’s when I decided to start my own agenda,” he said.
With only $329 in the bank and an $8,000 home equity loan, Morrison in 1999 founded Comtech, which started as a oneman, direct-mail company and has burgeoned into a multifaceted, multimillion-dollar marketing company with 60 employees, and customers from California to Florida to New York. In five of the past eight years, the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber has recognized Comtech among 50 of the fastest-growing companies in the metro, he said.
Morrison is all too aware of why he lacked self-confidence for much of his life and, despite his dreams, stuck with the comfort of working for someone else.
As a toddler, he was kidnapped at gunpoint by his biological father and grew up in a foster family, using an alias name at school for fear of his father finding him. He felt like he was in a witness protection program, he recently blogged.
Morrison knows he can’t turn back his own life, but today hopes to help other budding entrepreneurs like him clear obstacles faster and reach their dreams earlier.
For the past two years, he’s spent most of his time working as a mentor, author, speaker and business and life coach in Michael D. Morrison Enterprises.
From his Comtech offices at 117 E Hill, north of the state Capitol, Morrison sat down recently with
to talk about his life and career. This is an edited transcript:
I lived in a house with an alcoholic and abusive father until I was 2 and my brother was 1. Though we were really young, I can remember the emotional discomfort. Out of fear, my mother took us to her parents’ home. But my father escaped from prison and at gunpoint, abducted me, as the firstborn. Fortunately, the highway patrol apprehended him and rescued me at the Arkansas state line. Still — largely for our safety — my mother made the gut-wrenching decision to give us up
PERSONALLY SPEAKING for adoption. We went to school under our foster parents’ last name so our biological father couldn’t track us down. To me and my brother, our adoptive parents have always been “Mom” and “Dad.” They earned the titles, and both of us legally changed our surnames to theirs when we turned 18. Our biological mom passed away recently. Growing up, I saw her a few times a year until after college, when I let our relationship go. Every time we met, she’d speak of her regret. For my part, I always thanked her for putting me in a better situation.
We grew up in a home in The Village, where my parents still live. My dad worked as a mechanic at Tinker and later, for an automotive parts distributor. My mom was a secretary at Oklahoma Christian University and then Quail Springs Church of Christ. I have another brother, my parents’ natural son, who’s seven years older and today lives in Virginia.
Sports. It was my release. I played basketball, baseball, track, soccer … a little ice hockey. No matter how many hours I studied, I was never a good student and was happy to get Cs. I took graphic arts for two and a half years at Oklahoma Christian University, but I did my real learning in the school of hard knocks. Starting at age 15, I worked 17 years for Don Wages of Sooner Mailing Service. A friend of my family’s whom I met through Quail Springs Church of Christ, Don was like a second dad to me. He was a great business mentor. I paid attention to how he treated people and employees, and worked my way up, from the warehouse to machine operator to database and list management.
I wanted to create my own culture — a fun, safe place where everyone is respected — and my own niche firm; not just an advertising firm, marketing firm or direct marketing firm, but a combination of all three. I named the company Comtech because we communicate business through technology. I knew that if I didn’t try doing my own thing when I was single, with no one depending upon me, that I never would. Early on, I shared space with a printer and did mostly mailings. I hand-folded letters and affixed my own stamps. Another mailing house printed my labels, which I applied myself. I’d put on a suit and sell all day, do the production at night, catch a few hours sleep, take the jobs to the post office the next morning, shower and then start the process all over again. It was two years before I hired my first official employee. The first eight years, I worked 16-hour days. I was my own janitor, accountant, HR department, everything until 2007, when I got smart, added two partners and started delegating and working the business versus the business.
I’ve actually started and own a business — versus simply going to school to be a business coach or buying a curriculum online. I’ve developed my own 12-week curriculum, with an outline, recommendations for each day and measurable goals. We may extend beyond 12 weeks, if we see a value in it. I help budding entrepreneurs refocus and pick up after a divorce, lost job or whatever the big elephant is in the room. We all come into this world the same — naked, uneducated and afraid. And we all face challenges. What matters is what we learn from those challenges, and how we move forward. I firmly believe you need to establish what exactly you want in life, and build your business around it.