My Life
Will of Steel:
How Determination Shaped JIM STAVIS
By Jason Dean, Photos by Ken Chernus / chernusphoto.com
Jim Stavis’ triumph over adversity is not a sugar-coated success story. But there is a sweet aftertaste to the tale of this entrepreneur who embarked on his first professional venture at an age when many of his peers were congregated in some fraternity house basement, trying to calculate whether their beer glasses were half-empty or half-full.
While still in his teens and poised at the threshold of adulthood, Stavis was presented with a sobering reminder of his mortality. Diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, Stavis was told he had a coin-flip’s chance to live into his 50s. The year was 1971. With the technology for insulin pumps and blood sugar self-testing not yet developed, such a diagnosis could have taken the wind out of the sails of the most resilient of people. In Stavis’ case, it sharpened his focus.
“I realized my lifespan might be shorter than most,” recalls the soft-spoken steel magnate, who turned 56 last December. “[Being diagnosed] prepared me to get my act together and figure my career path out. I didn’t have the luxury [of time] that a lot of my friends had.”
He launched Pace-Setter, Inc. with a partner who was 13 years his senior. The company provided accessory parts for the foreign car market. Two years later, the impact of the 1973 oil embargo slammed onto American shores with tsunami force, and a new day of ecological responsibility dawned: The Japanese auto industry blossomed like an origami chrysanthemum. Stavis and his partner were ideally positioned to reap the benefits. “I’d love to say we were so smart that we had seen this all in advance, but the market really came to us,” he admits.
“I realized my lifespan might be shorter than most. [Being diagnosed] prepared me to get my act together and figure my career path out. I didn’t have the luxury [of time] that a lot of my friends had.”
After 16 years as a minority owner at Pace-Setter, Stavis decided it was time for a change. He had learned how to build a successful business from the seed of an ambitious concept, and was anxious to spread his wings and give it a shot on his own. He started talking with one of his vendors, Doug Carpenter, whose specialty was the steel industry. They realized there was virtually no service component--companies that provided steel did so on their terms, without considering that a customer may want a certain quantity in a certain form. The two saw a promising niche and formed Paragon Steel in 1988.
Paragon did something that no steel company had done; they provided a whole spectrum of products -- stainless steel, aluminum, carbon steel, structural -- offering whatever customers wanted. Though not necessarily the cheapest, the convenience they offered proved to be a major selling point. Their model was mimicked by other steel companies that saw the value in catering specifically to customers’ needs.
“The service ‘ante’ was being raised to where we had to continue to find new, innovative ways to distinguish ourselves from the competition,” recalls Stavis. Paragon began processing and fabricating steel, which now represents the largest side of the business.
With plenty of federal and state dollars going into transportation, the company has been involved in municipal infrastructure projects. The most substantial is Mid-City Expo; Paragon is constructing the rail line stations from the downtown-USC area to Santa Monica, scheduled to begin running in 2014 or 2015.
As far as trends, Stavis sees green construction and alternative energy and solar projects as an area of fertile potential for years to come. But just because California is on the cutting edge of such technologies, that doesn’t mean the road will be smooth. “California has a lot of issues to resolve,” he reminds me. “There’s environmental issues and business issues that have caused a lot of our manufacturing base to erode…. Technology has made it so we have to be more inventive to maintain a relationship with our customers.”
“California has a lot of issues to resolve...
Technology has made it so we have to be more inventive to maintain a relationship with our customers.”
In 2005, still dealing with the complications and difficulties of his health condition, Stavis underwent a procedure that would alter his life forever. He received a rare, triple organ transplant–heart, kidney and pancreas–at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles. Getting a new heart and kidney is no small feat (no pun intended), but the new pancreas had a profound impact because it meant that he would no longer have diabetes, the disease that had ruled his life for more than 30 years.
“I have to be very good with monitoring my health, not getting infections, and making sure I take my anti-rejection meds,” he says. Other than that, he works out several times a week, plays golf, and stays active. “You’d never know that I’ve had all this stuff done.”
Our story closes with a message to the collegiate navel-gazers huddled in the frat house basement: To paraphrase the words of comedic philosopher George Carlin, the glass is neither half-full nor half-empty. It’s too big. Now go get a job.
