Entrepreneurial Fairfield

“The town was devastated when Parson’s College closed its doors in 1973. There had been 4,500 students and it was the largest employer in town by far.” Burt Chojnowski of Brain Belt Consulting and president of the Fairfield Entrepreneurs Association was describing the transition of Fairfield, IA (population 9,509) into one of the most entrepreneurial towns I’ve visited. I was in Fairfield for Chris Gibbons’ National Economic Gardening Gathering. It was the first time that I’d been back since visiting it several times in the late 80s. The town has gone through quite a transformation since then.

Burt went on, “Maharishi Mahesh Yogi bought the campus for $1.2 million in 1974 and started Maharishi University. He is focused upon the development of consciousness. He wanted to develop a utopian campus and community focused upon world peace.”

The University has acted as a magnet to bring in very creative people from all over the world. Many of them have settled in rural Fairfield, attracted by its more tranquil setting, low costs and creative energy.

Burt’s tour of the community pointed out numerous examples of individuals who have developed very entrepreneurial business in the town, “15% of all of the infomercials are produced here. We’ve got three newspapers.”

We drove by Chappell Studios, a school and marathon photographer, which is located in the largest commercial log cabin building in the world. Books Are Fun, a book-fair retailer, was started by Earl Kaplan in Fairfield, who sold it to Readers Digest for almost $400 million a couple of years ago. Bovard Studio Inc. is one of the largest producers of commercial stained glass windows in the world. Collectively those three companies employ over 1,000 in the town.

“We are building a $7 million civic center that will include a 525 seat auditorium to be able to do theater in the round. We’ve got over $1.5 million in renovations going on in the downtown right now as a result of a special $3 million revolving loan pool that the four local banks put together. We’ve got both a great public and private school here in town. The private school has about 400 students, costs around $12,000/year to attend and constantly wins several state championships each year.

The downtown was full with loads of entrepreneurial shops, coffee shops and restaurants. It was difficult to find a parking spot in the several times that I drove to the downtown.

Burt and the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs just published a study on Fairfield. Click here to read their great story.