The Fairfield Ledger, August 2006
Everybody Loves the Great Blue Yonder

The Sky Factory Manufactures 'Very Faithful' Illusions of the Sky

By Mackenzie Horras, Ledger staff writer

If necessity is the mother of invention, orthodontic work was the mother of The Sky Factory, a Fairfield-based company that manufacturers translucent ceiling panels containing images of the sky. When Bill Witherspoon, owner and founder of The Sky Factory, got the idea for his company, he was an artist with four children who needed orthodontic work. Fearing that he would be unable to afford four pairs of braces, Witherspoon found an orthodontist in Des Moines who was willing to exchange his services for a sky-panel ceiling in his home. "I have four children and I realized that some of them wore going to need orthodontic work," said Witherspoon. "So I saw some big bills coming down the road and I didn't have the funds at the time to handle them because I was then working as an artist. I went to Des Moines and found an orthodontist who agreed to allow me to change his ceiling by removing the square panels, throwing them away, and replacing them with watercolors that were modular. I made a big roiling like that, and he was very happy with it, and my children got their teeth fixed. So that was the first sky ceiling." At that time, Witherspoon considered starting a company that would specialize in sky ceilings. However, he knew that if he were to complete a large volume of work, he would have to change his practice of painting individual ceiling panels to a practice of using more efficient technology. "I thought, 'This would make a good business, if ever I want to do that," said Witherspoon. Witherspoon was initially unable to locate technology advanced enough to print the type of sky panels he wanted to make. But after several years, he was able to find the necessary resources. "I looked into printing technology and I didn't see the printing technology that would be necessary al that time," said Witherspoon.

"However, by 2002, we were looking at big inkjet printers, at lamination systems, good inks. Photoshop - there was a lot that had changed and it made sense to start a business." When Witherspoon started The Sky Factory in 2002, he combined his artist's eye with digital photography and laser printing. The sky panel, or "Sky Tiles," as they are officially called, are constructed from lightweight, translucent material. Photographs of the actual sky are printed onto the panels, which are installed into the ceiling in aluminum frames similar to those of real skylights. The panels are then backlit by 6500 Kelvin light - the same light temperature as actual daylight. The result is an image that resembles the sky, complete with clouds, trees and the illusion of natural lighting. To date, The Sky Factory's primary customers have been healthcare providers and architects working on healthcare facilities. Witherspoon says sky panels are popular in hospitals and clinics due to the captive nature of their viewers. "There are two types of people with respect to ceilings. One is the casual observer of ceilings, which is what we are right now, we're not looking at the ceiling but we're aware of it," said Witherspoon. "The other is the captive viewer of the ceiling, and those are people in health care, in spas, in the dentist's office. And those people who are captive viewers of the ceiling are also usually under stress. They are facing some kind of crisis in their life. So it makes sense, if you want to start a business, to go to the most receptive market. And this market, health care in general, is receptive for two reasons: first, people are captive observers of ceilings and second, they can gain tremendous benefit from an experience of nature while they are in that environment." Witherspoon says that the calming nature of the sky is an experience that helps people to relax and de-stress. "Everybody grows up under the sky," said Witherspoon. "It's the biggest experience of nature that we

have. And everybody loves the sky. Using the sky as a piece of nature for people to experience is sort of a no-brainer." According to Witherspoon, creating a very faithful reproduction of the sky is one of his primary goals when designing and constructing sky panels. "We have 18 to 20 different things that we control very carefully so that what we do on the ceiling results in an illusion, not just a pretty picture," said Witherspoon. "Photography has to be extremely accurate and our goal is to have the observer see what they would see if we cut a hole in that ceiling and those clouds and those trees were actually out there. We don't use wide-angle lenses because that bends and distorts and the mind will say, 'That's a photograph." It might be a nice photograph, but it's different than the mind saying 'That's the sky." Witherspoon says that the consistent use of 6500 Kelvin light is critical to the sky panel experience. "We use only 6500 Kelvin light, which is the full-spectrum lighting system," said Witherspoon. "It's the lighting used to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder. The reason that lighting will treat S.A.D. is because the mind registers that it's daylight. For practical purposes, the mind does not distinguish between that light and daylight, so it triggers all the appropriate neuroresponses." The sky images are created using actual photographs of the sky taken at locations all over the world. The Sky Factory has tens of thousands of sky images on file and is able to take special orders for individual projects. "People will frequently say, T want a mountain scene,' or T want something from Hawaii,'" said Witherspoon. "We gel a lot of requests, and we try to do what people need." According to Witherspoon, response to the sky ceilings has been impressive. Since the compa ny began in 2002, Witherspoon estimates that more than 1,000 sky ceilings have been installed all over North American and overseas. "Our growth has been pretty sig-

nificant recently," said Witherspoon. "We are probably at the level now where we are doing 400 or 500 ceilings a year." In order to respond to the demand for sky ceilings, as well as pursue further expansion through trade shows and marketing, The Sky Factory's employment has expanded from a handful of workers in 2002 to exactly 20 workers today. "I was on my own to start with, then there was one person, two people, now we have 20," said Witherspoon. "You can only do so much on your own. It takes more than one or two people to build a company like the Sky Factory and to do what we are doing. So it's just a matter of staying focused and attracting and keeping good people." Witherspoon says that his business is constructed in a unique way that involves significant role-sharing among employees. Witherspoon avoids assigning "titles" and has consciously avoided a hierarchical structure in favor of encouraging cooperation and communication."We have adopted a couple of business principles that are not necessarily common," said Witherspoon. "The first one is transparency. Transparency in business means no secrets, no hidden agendas. It means that everyone in the company knows what's going on. It means that you don't have a hierarchical management structure where the top knows and tolls the next level. "We have 20 people and everyone who works here understands that they have to be an active participant in every part of the business. Not just doing one job but also understanding the financials. Every Friday we meet for two hours and 'we discuss last month's finances, the balance sheet, the operating statement, the cash flow, the year to date, the last year ... And the idea is that.everyone in the company becomes more and more educated about business." Witherspoon says that he has also adopted a bonus program and an "ownership system" under which every worker has an incentive to help reduce costs and contribute to the overall efficiency of the compa

ny. "We have a modest salary base here and a very aggressive bonus program," said Witherspoon. "Last year, everybody received 40 percent of their salary in additional bonuses, which is quite a lot. We all know the formula, and the formula is that one-third of every dollar of net profit goes into our bonus bucket. "We also have an ownership program, so that as the company value increases, the people who are here causing that get increasing amounts of ownership. And it's not trial.

It's ownership that will accumulate and that will be a significant amount of total ownership as time goes on. But it's all performance-based. If we don't make money, we don't pay the bonus. If we make more money, if we save money on our costs of goods or we do things more efficiently, bonuses are bigger." According to Witherspoon, the desire to earn bonuses motivates his employees to work hard - even outside their own area of expertise.

SKY: The company involves all its employees in meeting customers, promoting products

"We do all kinds of cross-training, and we have to because we're small," said Witherspoon. "Nobody can just do one little thing, and there are times when you just have to help out. The bonus program also [creates incentive] for us to have as few people working as efficiently and effectively as possible, because every time we add another person, we split the bonus pool with more people. So we only want to add another person when they are really contributing to the bottom line." Another area in which the Sky Factory has attempted to lower its operating costs is in marketing. "We are very tight-fisted," said director of marketing communications Mark Petrick. "We don't like to spend money unless we can really see that it's going to pay off, so we don't do a lot of paid advertising. We try to work the editorial angle, using trade magazines. Trade shows are significant. This year, we are doing 19 trade shows, which is a lot. We have two booths ... our

big booth has actually won awards. "It's a really impressive pyramidal structure and a giant 14-foot circular ceiling hangs inside of it. And that really turns people on." According to Petrick, the same individuals who create the sky panels have built the trade show booths. The company's promotional pamphlets were designed by the "Sky Wizards" who also complete the graphic design for the sky panels. "That's very characteristic of how things are done around here," said Petrick. "If we want something done, we rarely outsource it. We usually figure out how to do it ourselves." Director of marketing Karan Garg says that the company tries to involve all of its employees in meeting customers and promoting the company. Production and design employees are often invited to attend trade shows along with the marketing directors in order to experience the enthusiasm of the customers firsthand. "If we use the big booth it will

require several people to set it up and man it, said Garg. "So then we'll bring people from production or one of the sky designers will come. So everybody kind of gets the experience of what it's like to interact with the client in a face-to-face situation. And that really opens up their eyes. Because when you're in here and you're talking online and you're seeing that somebody ordered this and somebody ordered that, you don't really get a flavor of how excited these people are when they see our product. At trade shows, you actually meet these clients and it sort of energizes you." Although Sky Factory employees do travel to trade shows, they do not have to travel to install the sky panels. "It's so simple to install that a good electrician anywhere can do it," said Witherspoon. "But the whole issue of customer service is critical to us. So we stay connected to projects all the way through con

struction and if there are any problems afterwards. So we stay as intimately involved as necessary from beginning to end." According to Witherspoon, customer service is one of The Sky Factory's biggest priorities. "We like to work with the client," said Witherspoon. "We don't want to be off-the-shelf suppliers." As a part of The Sky Factory's efforts to make contact with its customers, the company has begun to visit clients in a mobile display unit called the "SkyMobile." The SkyMobile contains a collection of Sky Tiles and the Sky Tile's wall counterpart, Luminous Virtual Windows. It recently departed Fairfield on a four-month tour of the West and Midwest. "The SkyMobile is for one thing: to give people the experience of the illusion of sky," said Witherspoon. "Because once they see it, they aren't going to forget it. We have done some major metropol-

itan areas: Minneapolis, Milwaukee, suburbs of Chicago, and a few other places. Basically, a typical day would be visiting about four different architectural design firms. And we come, park, invite people out, and they experience the Sky Ceilings and the Luminous Virtual Windows. Then we move to the next place. It's kind of like the Old West snake oil show, except that we don't sell anything, we just give people information and the experience." Witherspoon says giving people "the experience" of sky was the reason he founded the company four years ago. "Because of my history as an artist, I was focused on accuracy and honesty," said Witherspoon. "And what I've found is that you don't have to teach people anything. When they see it, they get it ... There is something very universal about the sky. All we need to do is be very faithful to that. To treat nature properly and honestly and not muck it up in some way or cheapen it, and everything works."

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