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We share an office, and nobody could believe that. ‘You work together, you live together,
and you want to share an office together? Are you guys crazy?’ I consider myself to
be a very, very lucky man. We really have a very special relationship. At about the
time that we were getting married, the revolution in Iran started to take place. So we decided
to move to the United States.We did not bring a lot of money; we did not have any support
or family. From the first day, our goal was to start our own business. They started importing
a line of budget inexpensive office chairs from Italy, and slowly went into in-house
manufacturing. They started to develop quite a bit of volume. So we launched ‘9 to 5
Seating’ about ten years ago to cater towards a contract market. From a very early age,
I was interested in the family business. As a child, my dad and I would always drive around
on weekends and look at different buildings and dream of one day occupying one. We would
sit together and draw some lines as to what the future factory of our company would look
like, and how much space we would need, and what we would do with the space. Through a
lot of hard work and dedication, you know, those dreams finally did come true for us.
Several years ago we embarked on this project to build a new corporate headquarters for
our business. We went through a ground-up development, on a brand new manufacturing
facility that we’re operating out of today. Dara was very involved, very hands-on. He
made sure that we designed the building with a lot of attention to the environment. Our
green practice is very important to us. One of the elements that we took into account
is our solar panel system on the roof of our building. We’re actually producing all the
power that we consume. Bank of America was really able to help us because they have the
experience, the know-how. They had a road map set for us at every step of the way. They
had helped us to get the project done within our budget and on time. During the past few
years, when the industry has been suffering, our business has been growing. We understand
our market, we spend a lot of time on new product development. A lot of this is thanks
to Bank of America. Matt, our bank representative, we’ve gotten to know him well through the
years. He’s always looking one step ahead; getting to know what we do as a company, and
what needs that we have. I just pick up the phone and I ask ‘Matt, I have this issue’.
He solves it right away. We look at Bank of America like a partner. Our success is Bank
of America’s success. I truly believe that.