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Framin’ Gallery
Made in Oklahoma: Framin’ Gallery
April 11, 2007-04-13
The Oklahoman
Key personnel: Owners Kelly and Sherrye Van Osdol.
•Employees: Four.
•Founded: 1983.
•Background: "You name it. We frame it.”
It's not just a motto, it's the business at Framin' Gallery, an Edmond institution for more than two decades.
Kelly Van Osdol founded the company with his wife, Sherrye, after they decided to get out of the teaching profession. An article on the picture framing business prompted Van Osdol to buy a franchise from a national company. Less than six months after the Van Osdols founded the company, Penn Square Bank in Oklahoma City collapsed and the state's economy began a decade-long slide.
That was a blow to a business funded with discretionary income, Van Osdol said.
"That third year, if a customer would buy something, we would run the check across the street to get it in the bank,” he said.
That third year also marked the end of Framin' Gallery's association with the franchising company, Van Osdol said.
"We got out about the time the company went belly-up,” he said. But working with a franchise provided the Van Osdols with much-needed training.
After striking out on their own, the couple began banking what they had been spending on franchise fees. That practice continues and has bailed out the business in lean times, Van Osdol said.
The business moved near the end of 2004 from a strip shopping mall to a stand-alone building that the Van Osdols own in partnership with a developer and architect. Part of the building is leased to a business, which produces some revenue, he said.
In the first year after moving into their own building, business grew 45 percent, Van Osdol said.
Most of the business comes from individuals seeking to display artwork, photographs or mementoes. Van Osdol keeps a notebook of some of the unique items that he has arranged and framed for display on a wall.
Among the most unusual: a turkey, a can of green beans, and a piece celebrating the 1985 World Series victory of the Kansas City Royals that includes some dirt taken from the infield of Kauffman Stadium.
Van Osdol said his staff all have long experience in the business and can handle just about anything thrown at them.
"That's a huge difference in what I'm doing and what the big chains are,” he said.
Business Writer Don Mecoy
Copyright © 2007 Edmond's Best
