Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Saratogan Jody Tatro drops off her daughters, Nicole Wheeler (left), 6, and Allie Wheeler, 4, at St. Andrew's School.
CEO balances family, work, community
By Kara Chalmers
Jody Tatro might have it all. The CEO of a multimillion-dollar company, the mother of two remains active in the community, too.
Tatro and her husband, Dick Wheeler, own the Sunnyvale-based Professional Exhibits and Graphics, the largest tradeshow exhibit company in California, with clients such as high-tech giants eBay, HP, Sun Microsystems and Intel. The company provides exhibit design and building, marketing, consulting and storage for its 5,000 clients.
The 33,000-square-foot Sunnyvale office serves as the company's corporate headquarters and its showroom. The company has two other offices in Cerritos and Sacramento.
Tatro's background is in sales of mainframe software. She worked at two development companies before 1992, when she and Wheeler bought the small, fledgling company in Santa Clara. After two months, they moved to Sunnyvale, and in 1997 they purchased the large showroom at the current location on Bordeaux Drive.
The company has grown from $1 million in annual sales revenue in 1992 to $10 million in 1998. It was recognized as one of Inc. Magazine's top 500 companies in 1997 and as one of Silicon Valley's 100 fastest-growing privately held companies in the San Jose Business Journal in 1997-1998.
The tradeshow business is growing in general. Tradeshows are now the third best way for a company to sell itself, behind advertising and direct sales, Tatro said. "Right now, with the dotcoms and these new companies having to show who they are and tell what they do in a very quick way--to get out of the chute fast--tradeshows are becoming very popular," she said.
For some small startups, Professional Exhibits and Graphics will handle everything from soup to nuts, including logo, brochures and exhibits.
"We can be their marketing department," Tatro said.
Tatro and Wheeler also own the Focal Group, a small advertising agency they spun off from Professional Exhibits and Graphics. It is based out of the Sunnyvale office.
"We were having a lot of clients come to us for the logo, the ads, the media placement and it was taking a lot of our designer's time," Tatro said. "So we decided that this is a very good business model and we spun it off so it's actually a separate corporation."
Tatro and Wheeler have an equal partnership, but while he runs the day-to-day operations at the 70-employee company, she oversees the marketing, accounting and legal departments.
"Since we've had kids, I've kind of stepped back a little bit and been more strategic," she said. "I do more of the accounting and legal background type of stuff."
She said there is no typical workday. One day she could be working on opening a new office in Los Angeles and the next, sitting through an interview for a radio station.
Tatro said the difference between high tech and the tradeshow exhibit industry was noticeable. "What we noticed in looking at the tradeshow industry, was that it was a fairly infant industry and a lot of the companies lacked service and professionalism," she said. "What we did is take my background in high tech and bring some of that market savvy and professionalism to this industry."
Tatro and Wheeler's children attend St. Andrew's School, and Tatro serves on its board of trustees. This year, she was a co-chairwoman for the school's annual giving campaign, which raised funds to renovate the school's lower field. Her family attends church at St. Andrew's, as well. She and her husband redesigned the school's brochures, did their annual report and the logo for the auction for the past few years, pro bono.
"I am a firm believer in volunteering and setting an example of volunteerism for your children," she said.
Tatro, who has lived in Saratoga for most of her life, is glad to raise her children in a place where she says people watch out for each other. "Growing up, I don't think I was able to get away with anything because if your parents weren't there, somebody else's parents were there," she said. "It was really nice. It was a neat atmosphere to grow up in."
Tatro's company's corporate philosophy is to donate to charities that help children, such as the Make a Wish Foundation and the Summer Symphony for the Children's Health Ministries at Stanford University. Tatro also said the company donates to local soccer, baseball and basketball teams.
Wheeler is currently at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, taking classes as part of an Inc. Magazine and MIT program that allows young entrepreneurs to study for one week a year for three years and to meet with some of the giants in the business industry.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
