MILTON
Mark and Lori Warren of Milton threw a massive party Friday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their business, American Awards & Promotions.
There was a bit of hesitation to have a party for the big milestone, though. It had been a tough year for the awards company, which had recently lost a key employee.
“Lori and I decided to take our savings and throw a party for our customers and everyone whoÃÛèÖÊÓƵ helped us get through the years,†Mark Warren said.
The company makes a wide variety of recognition products, including custom trophies, plaques, medals, ribbons, and crystal and acrylic awards.
The business was started in 1981 by MarkÃÛèÖÊÓƵ father, James “Jim†Warren. Jim would often purchase trophies for his children and groups such as the Cub Scouts. He called it The Trophy Shop.
It started as a side job since Jim worked for Bliss Communications full time. Mark assembled the awards and engraved them. They hired one employee, Beverly Wittenwyler.
“In 1984, I came home from the army and went back to school,†Mark said. “I told my dad, ‘Why don’t you pay me minimum wage? I’ll schedule my classes around the work hours. I’ll do the work during the day and you won’t have to at night.’ He liked that idea.â€
In 1985, a year after starting to work for his dad, Mark met Lori and they were soon engaged. Lori quickly came on board at American Awards. The company became more successful as the years went on. Jim was a little afraid of the company becoming too big.
“He wanted to retire,†Mark explained. “He wanted to stay small.â€
“He was afraid we would leave and go get real jobs,†Lori added. “Then he’d be stuck with something bigger that he couldn’t handle.â€
Lori and Mark explained to Jim that was not going to happen. In 1998, after Mark came home after a U.S. Army deployment, Mark and Lori told Jim they wanted to buy the company. Jim had recently retired from Bliss Communications and was just doing book work for the company part-time. Jim agreed and let them take over.
In 1998, they changed the name to American Awards & Promotions.
“We do name badges,†Mark said. “Thousands of engraved tags for electricians. One of our biggest customers is Spacesaver in Fort Atkinson. They get thousands of tags.â€
The awards company works with every local school, many local corporations, government agencies, law enforcement and media companies, including the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association. They’ve even made awards for two past U.S. presidents: George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
“There was a company out of Chicago that was making the Billboard Music Awards that contacted us,†Lori said. “They ordered the engraved plates that went on the awards from us. So we knew who won the awards before they went out.“
The company faced many uncertainties with the arrival of COVID-19 in 2020.
“When the state closed down, we had to close down,†Mark said. “We kept our full time-staff, but we then had to lay them off. When we were able to come back, we had one (employee) retire. One went part-time and another didn’t feel like they wanted to come back full time.â€
Short of a full staff, the company has had to turn down some orders.
Mark and Lori are currently seeking qualified individuals to fill key positions.
“Once we get back to where we were and not just surviving, we are going to get into another growth spurt again because thereÃÛèÖÊÓƵ so much opportunity out there,†Mark said. “We’d like to keep the business here and keep it as local as we can.â€
