Spring 2005

Hard Work = Dividends for Young Alumni

When Marc Ashley and Joe Bolyard were in their early 20s and working as part of a small team of entrepreneurs trying to build Market America Corp., it was an experience that developed through hard work and perseverance.

Ashley, a 1997 graduate of the Bryan School of Business and Economics, is now chief operating officer for Market America. Bolyard, a 1992 BS and 1996 MBA graduate of the Bryan School, is now executive vice president of international development at Market America.

“In those years, we did everything,” Ashley says. “We would answer the phone. We packed boxes of products. There were many times we would spend our Friday nights working late – midnight, one a.m. – to get orders out.”

“We had to do everything,” Bolyard remembers. “We had to do the payroll – just everything possible to make this company run, we did it all from day one. And, because of that, I feel we are better managers because I can look at someone and say, ‘Yeah, I’ve done that. I’ve packed boxes. I’ve made orders.’”

On other nights, they would rent a van on a Friday afternoon, pack it full of Market America products and drive all night to a high-growth state – New Jersey, for example. They’d go to a conference to sell Market America products and promote the company on Saturday and Sunday, and drive back Sunday night to be back at work Monday morning.

While a number of laborious Friday nights and weekends were spent on the highways, their work has paid big dividends. Market America has been noted as one of the 50 fastest-growing companies in the Triad. It employs more than 300 people. And its national reach has expanded beyond the United States to operations in Australia, Taiwan and other countries.

“The thing is that we had the desire to make it successful, no matter what,” Bolyard says. “If that meant putting on a suit and getting up and speaking, we did it. If that meant checking orders and packing boxes and getting out commission checks and double-checking them to make sure they were correct, we did it. It was the desire to be successful that was the drive.”

Now, after more than a decade of business, that drive has paid off, and the corporation is giving back to the Bryan School. Market America recently pledged $125,000 to establish the Market America Graduate Fellowship Fund. The gift, part of the Students First Campaign, will provide fellowships for Bryan School graduate students with initial preference to candidates in the new information systems and economics Ph.D. programs.

“Joe and I have always had a vision of timing for Market America,” Ashley says. “For the first 12 years or so, it was building the business and, for the first 11 or 12 years, Market America was a relatively unknown name. Now, our name is out there in the community and we want to give back to the community and back to the university.”