Jason Offutt

When Jason Offutt started Ace Sign Co. in the garage of his Benton home in 2004, he was the sole employee.

Eleven years later, the company is located in a 50,000-SF facility in Otter Creek and has 52 employees and sales across the United States, as well as Canada and Mexico. What’s more, Offutt is in the process of locating offices on the East and West Coasts.

“I started out with basically no money and I’ve never had any assistance, no partners,” said the 40-year-old president of Ace Sign Co. “I’ve done everything with my two hands.”

Ace Sign Co., which had more than $5 million in revenue last year, has had an annual growth rate of 64 percent the past three years, Offutt said, in an industry that was growing by an average of 16 percent.

The company creates and manufactures a variety of sign designs and styles, but specializes in signage packages, Offutt said. The firm has contracts with a number of restaurants and other companies, including Vermeer, an Iowa equipment company, and Texas-based Mooyah Burgers, Fries & Shakes.

“As a franchise location opens, we will fabricate all the signage for the interior and the exterior, and we will go onsite and install that signage package for them,” he said. “That would include restroom signs, door lettering, vehicle lettering, the free-standing sign in the parking lot, the building sign, so it’s all packaged together.”

Offutt credits his father, Gordon, who owned his own sign company for 40 years before retiring in 2004, with teaching him how to run a business and the importance of hard work.

Another major influence on his career, Offutt said, is his father-in-law, Randy Keisler, who owns Cleo’s Furniture.

Offutt also owns two other businesses: Vision, which manufactures large high-resolution electronic signs that are sold wholesale to other companies, and Ace Outdoor Advertising, which manufactures billboards.

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