The work itself can be as varied as refinishing a churchful of pews or restoring an elderly Victrola. And the work behind the work can range from interviewing potential factory hands to whittling down a pile of paperwork to refining furniture design plans.
Having a complicated schedule is typical for furniture company owner Moises Correa. But when he came to Chicago from Ciudad Hidalgo in central Mexico in 1982, his agenda was much simpler: He merely wanted to find a job.
“My father used to tell us, even if you don’t make any money, you still have to work. When I was five or six years old, he took me to a place to clean pigs. `Here is my boy,’ he said, `I want you to put him to work. It doesn’t matter if you pay him.’ “
Sometimes he got paid only one peso a day. “All my money went to my mom,” he laughs. “But it still felt good to work.”
And he’s been doing it ever since. Moises, 34, who is the second oldest in a family of eight children, started out in Chicago as a worker in a furniture-making shop earning minimum wage, putting in up to 80 hours a week, and living in a rented room he shared with a friend. But he was determined to start his own business.
Over the next few years, as he worked and and saved, he focused on learning as much as he could and began to flesh out the dream he had of running his own place.
During this time several of his brothers also came to Chicago, two of them finding work at the Stripp Joynt, a furniture refinishing business, then on Montrose Avenue.
Starting at the bottom was part of the bargain. “In Mexico, you don’t have any idea of the (American) life or language,” says Felipe Correa, 26. “It was very hard in Mexico. We were a poor family. When I first came here, I was doing a little bit of everything, learning as I went along.”
When the younger Correa brothers learned in 1990 that the Stripp Joynt’s owner, Dick Dale, was ready to retire after operating the shop for more than 15 years, they mentioned that Moises might be a likely buyer.
Moises also thought the deal was a logical step and was ready to accept the challenge.
After agreeing on a price of $65,000, Moises took over, with the understanding that Dale would stay aboard for about a year to ensure a smooth transition.
Dale also allowed Moises to pay for the business over a three-year period. By 1995 things were going well enough that the business moved to larger quarters at 3812 N. Elston Ave.
Now Moises and two of his brothers run the Chicago shop, which employs about 10 workers; three other brothers oversee an operation in Mexico, where there is a total of about 30 workers.
In the early days of independence, challenges abounded and Moises tackled them with hard work and family support.
D. Lorenzo Padron, chairman of the Latin American Chamber of Commerce in Chicago, said the obstacles faced by Hispanic would-be entrepreneurs are especially complicated. They include limited capital, language barriers, a shortage of marketing expertise, and a tendency to focus on too small a geographic area.
Still, Padron says, the typical Hispanic entrepreneur isn’t on his own. “It takes a tremendous pool of effort. If the family wasn’t there, the business would never be able to get off the ground. In effect, the family provides free labor.”
And the Correa family has been a source of steadfast support.
“We have a very smooth relationship,” says Moises. “We try to do only things we like. The brothers who are involved in the business are able to do what interests them.”
In fact, in 1997, Moises turned over the day-to-day operation of the Stripp Joynt to Felipe, who, Moises says, has a special talent for customer service.
Felipe echoes his brother’s description of the family’s relations: “Like all brothers, sometimes we fight a little bit, but nothing major. In everything we do, we always help each other. I believe in all my brothers. And my father has helped us a lot.”
Moises was able to overcome his limitations in the English language early on by concentrating on the craftsmanship side of the business. His only formal training before launching his business was a high school class in woodworking back home.
Once he’d settled in Chicago, he started out sanding, then learned to put things together and how to machine the parts. He also made a point of studying the way furniture was built. “You have to know the assembly,” he says.
Former owner Dale underscores the importance of having “a great deal of skill with wood . . . reworking of old woods and an understanding of how to rehabilitate them.”
Felipe emphasizes the importance of hard work in overcoming barriers. “If you work hard, you’ll make it. Get involved and start working hard. Learn and be willing to sacrifice.”
Besides hard work, Moises has relied on innovation to spur success. While the Stripp Joynt dealt mainly with private customers, Moises started looking into new markets and expanded his client base to include churches and offices.
And in a major move, he added to the established business of refinishing furniture the riskier business of building it from scratch.
He had occasionally constructed custom pieces for Stripp Joynt clients and saw a need among designers and catalog companies for well-built furniture at reasonable prices.
But Moises wasn’t a marketer, so he turned to Korean-born Byung-Moo Soh, owner of Northbrook-based Target Marketing and now an investor in the venture.
They developed a line of furniture that Soh describes as having a “middle-of-the-road, conservative, country flavor” and appealing to a “medium income bracket” with items ranging from a $150 end table to a $900 armoire.
Most of the furniture is sold to catalog companies such as Seventh Avenue, Spiegel, and Kitchen and Home, Soh said.
Prototypes are built in the Elston Avenue shop and, once the model is finalized, the furniture is built in Mexico.
For now, the workers are building the furniture on rented quarters but Moises is negotiating a deal to build his own factory in Ciudad Hidalgo, an area that’s surrounded by mountains and offers a good supply of lumber.
When the factory is built, he expects it will provide up to 300 jobs for the local community.
Moises divides his time between Chicago and Mexico, where he will oversee the building of the factory, the hiring of workers and the manufacture and shipment of orders to the U.S.
He has no strong desire to live in Mexico, though he misses the food and especially his mother’s cooking.
While the restoration side of the Stripp Joynt generates about a half million dollars a year in sales, Moises says the furniture line should soon be doing four times that amount.
Says Moises: “We didn’t make any money (in the beginning) but we never tried to cut corners. You have to be motivated and give good service. Now we’re getting enough money.”
