Chapter One | How It All Started. (Chapter 1 of 6)
Have the last couple of years flown by? It all seems like a moment in time waiting for life to start back and it will but, we’ll look back and recognize these Covid years as a time where we’ve grown and changed. Time passes and life’s meaning comes from how we fill it.
Jamie and his father.
Thirty-six years ago, I came back from travelling abroad and had decisions to make about my future. My father started Brougham 41 years ago and was going to close his business. He moved to marry a southern belle from Louisiana he met at the annual promotional products show in Dallas. Brougham in Ottawa was an office with no one working in it. At that time, its technology was a multi-lined telephone, an electric typewriter, and filing cabinets filled with paper. That was the opportunity I picked up and ran with!
Frankly having been in the Naval Reserves, studied political science at Carleton U, spent a year in Europe, and being bilingual I figured the offers would come to me, but I found myself as a babe in the forest of downtown Ottawa buildings. I didn’t know what was inside, and they didn’t know about me either. Just as well. Despite humbly accepting the ‘best option’, I had the aptitude to succeed at whatever was presented to me. I knew it and it was not long before business was booming.
Jamie | 1992
It took only a couple of years before Brougham was being recognized among our industry peers as a champion and these were exciting times. I started my career, got married, and settled. It was fun, there were lots to learn, and success followed.
Five or so years after starting, Pam joined Brougham and since then we’ve effectively worked together. There are plenty of details to be cared for in the promotional products industry and Pam has been the backbone of our administration for customers and our supplier partners.
Since those early years, I’ve also worked with Petra, my wife, and best friend, who has strategically managed our finances and has put together the ideas and products behind many client projects. Without this team, Brougham would not be the great experience it has become today.
Our operating model has remained dedicated to its principles and values. If something was not working, we cut it. Imagine that in those early years we rejected our first computers. Then, everything started with ‘c:/ ’. They were slow and the orange type on black screens was like bad Sci-fi. Of course, the other thing that seemed primitive was the company’s books literally being these giant paper ledger books. Businesspeople got statements once or twice a year unless there was extra to pay an accountant to review and summarize those big books monthly. For most small businesses that didn’t happen. Yes, times have changed.