BusinessTN

Perhaps some products inspire more passion than others. When Bob Farnsworth left dinnerware maker Pfaltzgraff to lead a Fort Payne, Ala., company called GameTime, he was struck by his new employees' fundamental sense of purpose: They weren't just making playground equipment; they were facilitating child development. So Farnsworth made it official, shaping the 70-year-old Game- Time to become the mission-driven company its workers envisioned. "We said, 'If we're going to do it, we want to be serious about it,'" he recalls. "We didn't want it to be just a marketing position." In the 10 years since, Farnsworth—now CEO of GameTime's parent company, Chattanooga-based PlayCore—has proven that capitalism and altruism can play well together.

Farnsworth credits timing for PlayCore's exponential growth in the late 1990s. A new "obesity epidemic," changing demographics and tightened federal safety standards drove demand for new playgrounds, and a booming economy generated tax dollars to fund them. Largely due to GameTime's sales, revenues for PlayCore (which also owns do-it-yourself consumer brand Swing 'N Slide) shot from $40 million to $200 million in three years. PlayCore's rapid growth attracted the attention of private equity firms Chartwell, which bought the public company in 2000, and Bear Stearns, which acquired it as a portfolio investment last year. (PlayCore was unaffected by Bear Stearns' March buyout, Farnsworth reports.)

Private funding and lean manufacturing have fueled PlayCore's more recent growth, a continuing pattern of organic development and acquisitions. The company's strong market share, in turn, has freed it to invest in innovations that both promote child development and pay off strategically. Newly launched offerings, such as musical product "GT Jams," come with standards-based curricula, added value that also forges lucrative relationships with school systems and municipalities.
Underpinning all PlayCore's innovations is what Farnsworth calls a "significant and ongoing" investment in university-based research that drives product development. This research has resulted in self-imposed limitations which, from a business standpoint, might seem counterintuitive. PlayCore builds to exceed federal safety standards; Lisa Moore, vice president of strategic services, says the company has lost jobs by refusing to offer the eye-catching, super-high structures its own research deems unsafe. Influenced by partnerships with the Wounded Warrior Project and Siskin Children's Institute, a Chattanooga rehabilitative facility, PlayCore heavily promotes inclusive, and sometimes less dramatic, playground design for children and parents with disabilities. But the company's dedication to its mission has won it the trust—and the business—of the people Moore calls the real decision-makers when playgrounds are built: parents.