Michaela Brody & Paul Benke Z D Test, Inc.

Z D Test, Inc., located in Oregon, west of Portland, is a successful company whose owners have utilized the services of Silicon Valley SCORE to help in their success. Paul Benke and Michaela Brody are the founders, both of whom reside in Santa Clara County.. Paul is the CEO and Loren Pieper, who resides in Oregon, is VP of Operations. The business has been profitable for four years and is growing by concentrating on the manufacture of several types of fixtures and selling them throughout the United States and Canada. Sales in the last fiscal year ending March 2002 were over $1 M, down less than 5% in an industry that was off more than 50% overall. The company is poised to substantially increase sales in fiscal 2003 while increasing the after tax profits.

This success story and the role SCORE has played started on August 22nd, 1996, with a visit to a SCORE counseling session with counselors John Edwards and Mike Mulcahy at the Palo Alto, CA counseling location. At the time Paul and Michaela owned a company, Zero Defects, that was primarily a testing service for manufacturers of printed circuit boards. They were setting up operations in a number of cities including Phoenix and Minneapolis. A complementary, but sideline business was that of manufacturing fixtures for some clients who were doing their testing in house. The overall business was beginning to become obsolete as more and more clients were buying the test machines and doing their testing in house.

Michaela had founded Zero Defects Inc.18 years ago (1983) when she relocated from Southern California to the Bay Area. She chose to do contract testing of printed circuit boards, those thin plates on which various electronic components are mounted. When Michaela and Paul came to SCORE, they knew it was time to rethink, regroup and refigure the strategy for the business because the business landscape had significantly changed. The first task was helping them focus in order to bring their company back into profit. It was critical, but not uncommon.

As a result of the first meeting, all agreed that the changes necessary would be accomplished best through mentoring and field counseling. The next meeting with SCORE was at the owner's location. This was the beginning of an ongoing long term relationship. Now Michaela, Paul, John and Mike meet every four to six weeks to review financials and cover business plans and strategic issues. "Mentoring really does pay off, but it's not a one-shot. It takes a lot longer than many people realize," a quote by Mr. Edwards in a recent January 26, 2001, San Jose Business article. The partners see their SCORE advisers as "our informal board of directors," Ms. Brody notes in the same article.

Several key decisions and actions resulted from the discussions with SCORE. Michaela and Paul set priorities for time and refocused attention on customers and production. Another crucial part of the story is the advice from SCORE prompted them to move their company away from having to buy expensive test equipment, which became obsolete almost from the moment it went on line.

One important decision was to separate Z D Test as a separate company to focus on the manufacture of specialized test fixtures for companies. A key step was the preparation of Zero Defects for a possible sale. Another SCORE counselor, Charles Askanas, was brought in to help develop the information that a potential buyer would need to see prior to a sale and to provide Michaela and Paul with an evaluation of the company. It was quickly realized that organizing Z D Test as a separate entity would help focus resources and result in a successful independent company. Thus, we were on the road to success!