M.A.S.A.; Where ingenuity and work ethic see opportunity

Mike Schmitt Sr. knew he needed to get out of the restaurant business.

He had been operating The Heritage Inn since 1972. Many likely remember the smorgasbord that was located in what is now known as the Polo Room.

Now 71, Senior — as he is known — used his business savvy to grow The Heritage Inn into a success from scratch.

His ability to see opportunity in adversity, a trait that would help him create a nationally recognized company on South Meridian Road, had helped him make the restaurant a success. Like when he turned one of the slowest restaurant days of the year, Thanksgiving, into one of the busiest at The Heritage Inn.

It started with a simple ad in the newspaper. “It said ‘Don’t work the fun out of Thanksgiving’ and I think people picked up on that,” Senior explained.

The restaurant created the gobbler pack; a carry-out Thanksgiving dinner that could feed about a dozen people.

“After about two years, we went from about 50 to 60 people on Thanksgiving to over 600 and we would sell over a 1,000 of those carry-out meals,” he said.

Between the restaurant, carry-out meals and catering, things were going well, but he could see problems in the future. “What I saw on the horizon is what the restaurant industry is having a lot of trouble with today, labor,” Senior explained. “I saw that writing on the wall and I felt like the industry was going to get tight.”

He made a vow to be done with it by the time he was 50 years old.

Then in the early 80s, as he was examining his future in the restaurant business, a friend of his began selling stock for Huntingburg-based Yellow Banks Clay. Yellow Banks Clay processed calcium carbonate into a fine powder to be used in paint, caulk and antacids.

Figuring he could make some money selling stock, he became familiar with the powder. And, as the clay company began to explore using the material in products like kitty litter and oil dry, Senior, seeing an opportunity, asked if he could have the rights to sell it nationwide.

“It happened pretty fast after I bought stock in the company,” he added.

Then someone happened to call about using the calcium carbonate to line baseball fields and Senior was instantly in the sports field maintenance business. The business office at The Heritage Inn began to do double duty as the newly created M.A.S.A. headquarters. It held that position for about 10 years.

Originally, M.A.S.A. was an acronym for Mid America Sales Associates. “At that point, we didn’t know we would be in the sports industry as a whole,” Senior explained, saying that they didn’t want to limit their lines to just the sports industry. Ever seeking another opportunity, Senior kept his eyes and ears open for opportunities to sell anything.

Then someone in Danville, Ky. asked whether Senior had any Diamond Dry, a field drying agent. “I asked him what Diamond Dry was,” he said. “So I ended up getting Diamond Dry and got the rights to it in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.”

That was the secret to his growth. “Invariably someone would ask if we had this or that,” Senior said. “And invariably my mind wandered to,’if I’m selling chalk, I might as well have chalk machines.’ Then, I would have a coach say they don’t chalk, they paint all their lines. So, I would get paint and all the paint machines. And then I’m going, ‘if we got all that, I might as well have bases.'”

Fulfilling his vow, after spending 20 years operating The Heritage Inn, Senior got out of the restaurant business by the time he turned 49.

The one product that really surprised Senior in regards to its popularity is Poly-Cap. A corrugated pipe product treated to be UV-resistant that is draped over the top of the chainlink fences on stadiums and fields across the nation. The covering protects players from being injured by the exposed sawtooth-shaped links along the top of the fence.

According to Senior, he was contacted by a guy that had created the covering using corrugated pipe after he witnessed a kid get hurt on a baseball field.

Senior decided to explore the idea. He found a supplier for the corrugated pipe and began ordering rolls of it. Originally, when the loads arrived, Senior and crew would stretch the 250-foot sections of pipe out on the floor and cut it along one side using a circular saw to create the Poly-Cap product. “You would think that was the hard part,” Senior laughed, “but the hard part was getting it back in a roll.”

Back then, the company would get calls from coaches and field maintenance guys that just had a baseball player gash their face or cut themselves on the fenceline. “They would want it delivered the next day,” Senior explained.

The product is now used so extensively that Senior surmises most people just think of it as a decoration.

Rolls of the stuff are stacked from floor to ceiling in the warehouse ready for the upcoming sports seasons. It is by far the company’s biggest seller and to supply the demand, M.A.S.A. created a special operation that unwinds and rewinds the pipe as it is guided through a cutter.

As each step and stage of growth of the business further entrenched it in the sporting industry, the company officially took on the name Mid-America Sports Advantage.

That growth has been encapsulated in the construction of an expansion to the original building about every four years. With six expansions completed, the entire operation on Meridian is now under 40,000 square feet of roof and employs around 30 people.

Senior’s daughter, Denise, joined the company in 1992. “When I first came here, it was me, dad, Marcie and Fran, and we did everything,” Denise said. “We did the accounts receivable, accounts payable, the shipping, the receiving, the inventory. I would go out there and put dad’s big overalls on, roll up the pants and stack skids, shrink-wrap them up, load them on the truck.”

“We would start at about 6 in the morning doing paperwork and about 9 we’d start doing sales, then about 4 we would shut that down and start working in the warehouse,” Mike added.

Senior’s son, Mike Jr., joined the company next and he pushed to expand the company’s product line further. This led to them purchasing Osborne Innovation, a company created by Frank Osborne, one of the winningest high school baseball coaches in the nation. Osborne created innovative baseball training equipment as well as cages and safety nets. The addition to M.A.S.A. greatly expanded their offerings of high-quality equipment.

Mike Jr. and Denise also improved the company’s catalog. What started as a trifold brochure 33 years ago was expanded with the product line. This year, they mailed out a 200-page catalog to over 75,000 customers.

Their online sales and support system has continued to grow and they now have outside sales reps and a busy call center. They also sell sports equipment and uniforms to the local public through a showroom located just in the entrance to the headquarters.

Besides field maintenance equipment and supplies, their massive product line now includes a wide-range of sports equipment and safety gear.

“We always joke we are the best-kept secret in Dubois County,” Denise laughed.

“I always have people asking me what we do here anyway,” Mike added.

Through the many different sporting goods and field maintenance supplies and machinery, the business is multi-faceted.

“There are a lot of different faces to this company,” said Mike Kempker, Denise’s husband and the company’s IT manager.

Recently, the company began expanding into custom uniforms and jerseys. They have already started creating uniforms for Greater Jasper Schools, Holy Trinity and some smaller traveling teams. Growth has been slow on purpose as they build the new brand and services by word of mouth and personal connections.

It’s also only a few days from January and things are about to get really busy for the secret company sitting on Meridian that ships its products to professional franchises, colleges and little league fields these days.

Senior isn’t surprised by the growth of the company. He was always prepared as he took steps but this isn’t exactly how he imagined things would go.

“I always say that I failed in my business because the idea that I had was that I would sell chalk,” he explained. “I was going to do it in January, February and March and take checks in until June and then take off the rest of year.”

The company’s website is here and they have a Facebook Page here. The company is located at 1413 South Meridian Road in Jasper.