By John Eckberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Tami Longaberger, CEO of Longaberger Co., stands in front of the corporate offices, which are in a building shaped liked a basket, in Newark, Ohio, on Thursday. (Kevin Graff photo) | ZOOM |

NEWARK, Ohio - Tami Longaberger's plans for the morning changed as soon as she walked through the welcome center at the Longaberger Homestead.

The president and chief executive of the Longaberger Co. was headed to a quick meeting when a shopper asked for an autograph.

How could she refuse? A line of 100 or more autograph-seekers from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Chicago eager for a basket signed by a genuine Longaberger immediately queued up.

"I'm sorry," Longaberger whispered to her staff, "but I have to sign for at least 15 minutes. They've come so far."

America has fallen in love with Longaberger products.

An estimated 400,000 people annually make a pilgrimage to Newark to see firsthand the creation of baskets, pottery and wrought iron much as if they were making a trek to Walt Disney World.

Tour buses line up in the Longaberger parking lot, filled with fans thirsty for a tour of a restored barn and a visit to a replica of the original Longaberger house, and eager to check out a replica of the workshop where Longaberger baskets originally were made.

And usually they go home with memories and a trunk full of Longaberger products.

LONGABERGER

Headquarters: Newark, Ohio President and CEO: Tami Longaberger, 42 Employees: 5,500 Products: Handmade baskets, pottery, wrought iron. 30 million products, including 8 million baskets, were sold in 2002. 2002 revenue: $906 million. The company is privately held. Honors: Recognized by Newman's Own Inc. as one of the "Top 10 Most Generous Companies in America" in 1999. Ranked 18th on Working Woman magazine's list of largest female-owned companies in 2001. The largest female-owned business in central Ohio in 2000. Listed among the 500 largest privately held companies by Forbes since 1996.

TAMI LONGABERGER

The 42-year-old president and chief executive of Longaberger Basket Co. is a trustee of Ohio State University, a member of the board of directors of the National Audubon Society, a member of the board of directors of the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at OSU, and a member of the Ohio Business Roundtable.

"It's like going to Graceland," says shopper Kim Grube of Bethlehem, Pa., "except that you spend more money here."

And that, of course, is the grand plan of the Longaberger Co.

A down-home big business

To the locals, Tami Longaberger, 42, is a woman with a bright smile who first caught their eye more than two decades ago while working the register at her father's IGA grocery store in nearby Dresden.

She recalls her roots in retailing well.

Restocking day was Wednesday, cashiers were not permitted in the meat department and in the pre-scanner days of the 1970s, she had to actually ring up purchases on one of two cash registers.

While she may be just "Tami" to folks in Dresden, Longaberger has a national profile.

She leads a privately held company with 2002 revenue of $906 million, millions of devoted customers (mostly basket collectors), 5,500 employees and 71,000 independent sales consultants.

The Longaberger Co. is a homegrown Ohio success story that has its roots in that small-town grocery, but today is headquartered in an office building that is a giant replica of a basket on the edge of Newark.

Its Newark facilities include an 880,000-square-foot-factory where handcrafted baskets, wrought-iron stands and pottery are made.

There is a fitness center, a closed-circuit television studio and manufacturing-support building that cover 250,000 square feet.

A fulfillment center where products are readied for shipment takes up another 500,000 square feet.

A woodcraft factory takes up 120,000 square feet and a 10,000 square-foot building is devoted to wooden handles.

Other plants, where hardwood maple for Longaberger products is processed, are spread around several Ohio counties.

People come to Longaberger to watch one of the largest collections of artisans in the United States work their magic in the basket factory.

Row after row of basketmakers calmly thread and weave splints into distinct - and expensive - baskets.

Some products, such as a laundry hamper, sell for as much as $299.

Nostalgia for sale

Longaberger sells nostalgia, made-in-America quality and appealing functionality, said Doug Lane, consumer products analyst at Avondale Partners in Nashville.

What makes Longaberger different from most consumer product companies is its relationship with independent sellers, many of them home-based consultants.

"You can show in a home setting the advantage of buying a product. When you walk along a store shelf, there's nobody there to sell it," Lane said. "That's a huge advantage."

And it has paid off.

With its $906 million in revenue, Longaberger is in a direct-sales class all its own, Lane said.

"That is large, very large," Lane said. "For instance, Tupperware had annual revenue of $226 million. Partylite, a candle and candle accessory firm, had $550 million in revenue last year."

In recent years, the company has branched out from its signature baskets to wrought-iron furniture - to display the baskets - and pottery, which fits into or complements the baskets.

Today, half the company's revenue comes from nonbasket products. About $170 million alone is from pottery and dinnerware sales.

Idea began 30 years ago

Besides the Homestead and manufacturing complex, Longaberger also owns a championship golf course designed by Arthur Hills, and a hotel in Newark.

Tami Longaberger's father and founder of the company, the late David Longaberger, built the course to give men something to do while their wives shopped at the Longaberger complex.

In 2000, the course was ranked by Golf Magazine as one of the top 10 public courses in America.

Company employees and associates get the first crack at tee times each year. After that, the course is open to public play. Tee times are fully booked by May most years, Tami Longaberger said.

But the golf course was not the only correct business perception for David Longaberger.

He first got the notion of selling baskets about 30 years ago when he saw travelers driving past his IGA to Roscoe Village, a restored canal town in Coshocton.

After visiting Roscoe Village, Longaberger asked his basket-building father to make a dozen baskets.

"He put them in a display at the end of the aisle and all but one sold. My mother still has that one," said Tami Longaberger.

One day, when Longaberger noticed a woman making repeated visits to buy 10 or more big baskets at a time, he asked her why.

"She said she worked for another direct-selling company and used the baskets to carry kitchenware to her shows," Longaberger said.

She would tell people about the baskets, they'd buy them as well as the kitchenware, and then she'd be back to Longaberger to buy some more.

"He became the first sales associate. He started having home shows where he'd talk about his family history, about how his father made the baskets and how his 11 brothers and sisters helped when they had to or when they could," Tami Longaberger said.

Before long, sales took off and the Longaberger Co. was born in 1978.

The company is poised to grow beyond the United States as it plans to push into Canada within the year, Tami Longaberger said.

Next year, a studio division will offer new basket designs to appeal to city dwellers and customers with more contemporary tastes.

One thing is not likely to change.

"People value Americana," Longaberger said. "People value time-honored crafts associated with our business, whether it's pottery or baskets, whether they are 65 years old or 22 years old. Tastes may change - but I think attention to design will never change."

E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com