Marcus McDonald

On the 15th anniversary of his company, McDonald Enterprises Inc., Marcus McDoanld, owner and president, reflected on the fond memories of those 15 years. “it was quite a beginning,”he smiled. “I launched this company in the back of my car with a Hunts tomato cardboard box as my file cabinet. As for the initial capital for the new business, I sold my 1970 Oldsmobile for $6,000, and bought a 1970 stationwagon along with a 1967 Oldsmobile on a 90-day bank note. I was off and running as the sole employee of the new enterprise. Since that day, July 20, 1972, I havenot stopped running. Right from the start I have made three ground rules: Be Honest, Work Hard, and Keep The Customers’ Interests In Mind.” This honest approach has worked well for Marcus. At the end of the 1st year, his anual revenues grew to $350,000; last year he had $4.3 Million in gross sales and this year he expects an eight percent growth on top of that. “The opportunities were there,” he added. “My concept was somewhat different. Right from the beginning of each new project, I decided to work with the Owner, the Architect and Contractors, participating in the designwork of fixed furniture such as floors, bleachers, lockers, scoreboards, casework and al other aspects of the institutional needs.”

Marcus even introduced a new concept of lockers. He worked with List Industries, a Florida based Locker manufacturer, to produce a fully welded corridor locker for schools. It offers an unique, double panel welded door resulting in an extremely strong, torsioon-free locker. List Industries coined this style as their Marquis locker, a french version of Marcus.

A self-motivated leader, Marcus Mcdonald launched his life at age 6 when he went water-skiing in the Beaufort Water Festival. He was 1 of 13 kids water-skiing behind a motor boat. During his high school days at J.L. Mann High School in Greenville, he made the very first touchdown on the new high school’s field, and went on to make two touchdowns that evening to help his high school win its very first football game. During his days at the University of South Carolina, he started McDonald Janitorial Services. By then he was married and had a baby. “I had to provide for my Family,” he said. “The business grew and I hired as many as 14 friends who needed jobs, to clean offices, apartments, and homes.”

Marcus graduated from the University of South Carolina with B.S. degree in Marketing and began working on his future plans. His marketing research showed that there was a great need of a business that worked with Owners, Architects and Contractors on the interior designs of fixed furniture in various institutions such as colleges, universities, hospitals, hotels, schools, industries and government agencies.

For Marcus, the purpose of opening the doors of his new business was to provide a much-needed service in the fixed furniture areas. “It had to be an innovative service, not run of the mill type,” he ephasized. “I came up with a coordinated plan, that produced pleasing results. Service is the central core of my philosophy. From my early entrepreneurial days, I learned that if you provide good service, your customers are happy to pay for your services. The profit then becomes a natural outcome. Since then I have made customer satisfaction as my top priority.”

This philosphy and the approach is the secret of his success. His investment of $6,000 has produced almost $30 million in sales in the past 15 years and provided full or part time emplyment to approximately 70 families. In the past 15 years, he has seved 21 colleges and universities, 11 hotels and convention centers, 17 tech colleges, 46 churches, 70 hospitals and health care institutions, 163 high schools and elementary schools, 107 industries and businesses, 41 government agencies, 16 recreation centers, 54 waste water treatment plants and 48 miscellaneous proejcts, for a grand total of almost 500 projects covering the state of South Carolina.

As a general contractor’s speciality license-holder, McDonald Enterprises designes the project and installs it too, in order to maintain supervision and control over the project from the beginning to the end. “It ensures quality control and competent craftmanship,” he commented. “Every project we undertake involves our credibility and our workmanship. Our customers count on us for our ability to do a good job.”

Through the years, Marcus has also followed two other ground rules; “I don’t take work home,” he said. “When I leave my office, I am done with the day’s work and that’s all I can do. My family deserves the rest of my time. Also every day on my may to work I turn off the car radio and pray. I do the same thing when I leave the office to go home. I do it unselfishly without asking God for anything. It’s my way of saying thank you to God for giving me an opportunity to serve the people and also seeing me through the day which sometimes gets hectic. These quiet moments have helped me strengthen my spiritual self.”

It all goes to show that life is what you make it. Time and again, Marcus has proved that honesty, hard work and prayers help to make the business more successful and life more enjoyable.