Heavy Metal

It took Bill Soucie 20 years in the Canadian military, time that included a stint on loan to the U.S. Army Rangers, to learn an essential hard truth: Service to your country doesn't always provide financial riches.

Soucie also discovered his passion lies in making businesses go, not running combat training missions. In fact, while stationed at the Canadian Special Service Forces headquarters in southern Ontario, Soucie turned around an underperforming golf course and an enlisted men's club. “I found out I was pretty good at doing business,” says Soucie. “I also found it pretty exciting.”

Soucie has taken that touch to his latest venture, a Sarasota-based pewter metal company that manufactures promotional gifts, from decorated flasks and key chains shaped like corvettes to inscribed picture frames. Soucie is confident the company, Sparta Pewter Promotions, is on the verge of a breakout year in 2011.

So confident that Soucie, 62, spent most of 2010 investing in Sparta. For starters, last April he bought a 13,000-square-foot building off Cattlemen Road, just west of Interstate 75. He paid $340,000 for the building, which is more than double the size of the company's previous home.

Soucie then spent $250,000 on a renovation project for the building, which was virtually a shell. The facility was split into 6,000 square feet of office and light manufacturing space and 8,000 square feet of warehouse space. “There was no more room (in the last place),” says Soucie. “We had started to rent warehouse space.”

Next Soucie called on a trusted group for an interior renovation: Sparta Pewter's 15 employees. The staff came in on weekends in January. They laid carpet, bolted doors and painted walls. “Now everyone feels like they are part of the company,” says Soucie. “It really made everyone proud of the place.”

It also saved at least $40,000, says Soucie.

Soucie founded Sparta Pewter in 1998, soon after he moved to Sarasota from Canada. The company, with clients from zoos and aquariums to college bookstores and American military bases, was profitable but stuck in neutral for nearly a decade, says Soucie. It had a breakout year in 2007, when some big contracts led to $1.8 million in annual sales.

The company had $2.5 million in 2009 revenues, but spent most of 2010 preparing for this year, so growth was minimal. Soucie projects $3 million in 2011 revenues.

Soucie founded the first version of Sparta Pewter in Montreal in 1988 after he retired from the military. Soucie's sons took over that business in 1998, when he moved to Florida. The Canadian and American businesses are run separately.

Sparta Pewter does its custom manufacturing in-house, with more than 10,000 possible items, although Soucie can clearly save on production costs by outsourcing overseas. “Our advantage is that we do small amounts of unique items,” says Soucie. “If you go to China, you still need to go high volume.”

China, though, isn't Soucie's biggest obstacle. That would be the price of pewter, which has increased from $4 or $5 a pound to $16 a pound over the past year.

The increase impacts every aspect of the company. Says Soucie: “You have to be on your toes all the time to make a profit.”