Featured in the Peoria Journal Star on Sunday, May 3, 2009. Written by Terry Bibo.
At this time last year, Evan Hickerson had it made.
This year, he's making pizzas.
Like most potential engineers, he's got a plan. But he's remarkably chipper for a 19-year-old who is already on Plan B . . . or P.
Twelve months ago, Evan was graduating from East Peoria Community High School. He had won statewide awards for his welding abilities, thanks to a special program with Illinois Central College. So he was tapped for a $14-an-hour job at Caterpillar Inc.
"I thought, 'Man, that sounds like a good opportunity,' " he says. "It was ka-ching! Ka-ching! My eyeballs were rolling in circles."
That is decent money. That is even better when your real goal is an engineering degree. Caterpillar had a tuition reimbursement plan and training opportunities. And Evan had his foot in the door at a Fortune 50 company that hires a lot of engineers.
"I was sold on Cat," he says.
For eight months, his plan zoomed ahead like the Sportsman car he'd helped an EPCHS teacher prepare for the track at Peoria Speedway. By year's end, he was making more than $18 an hour. Unfortunately, like many of us, that's when Evan's plan hit the wall.
The same morning he was scheduled for a meeting to finalize his special education and training program, he got called into a supervisor's office instead.
" 'It's canceled,' " he says he was told. " 'The entire program's been pulled. The economy's going down.' "
Tuition reimbursement was canceled, as well. Layoffs were on the way. Evan mulled his options. Rather than wait for the inevitable, he decided to meet it head-on.
" 'I was real clear about my goal when I went to Caterpillar,' " he told his supervisor. " 'I'm looking 40 years from now. I'm looking 30 years from now. This is not my goal.' "
He says his supervisor tried to come up with other alternatives, but working third shift already made it tough to study. He decided the best option was to leave Caterpillar, for now, and enroll full time in engineering classes. When the economy comes back, he hopes to be right back with it.
Of course, in the meantime, he still needs to make some money. This is where engineer meets entrepreneur: Plan P.
Evan didn't have a wife, a house or kids when he ended up unemployed. But he took his cues from someone who did: his father. Sixteen years ago, when Evan was 3, Jeff Hickerson was laid off from his job with Multi Graphics. He started his own company, eventually named Horizon Graphics. Over the years, Jeff Hickerson has done everything from computer service to running a grill for car cruise-ins. That includes building a specially designed, wood-burning, brick pizza oven that uses a computer and probes to monitor temperatures up to 800 degrees.
"Not everybody can be an entrepreneur," the elder Hickerson says. "It takes a unique individual - a crazy individual, really."
Perhaps uniqueness runs in the family. Evan decided he'd rather not get up early to reopen the coffee shop another would-be entrepreneur had retrofitted in the company garage at 222 Meadow. Instead, he would fire up the pizza oven and stay up late.
"Has your mom ever baked you a homemade pizza? That's what it's like," Evan says.
Now known as Mud Puddle Coffee & Pizza, his business serves up five family-tested varieties of pizza. The Hickerson family makes the dough and sauce and microbrews root beer. Jeff heats up the stove while Evan attends classes; mother Susan keeps the books; sister Caitlin buys the groceries; Evan chops the wood and does the cooking. They buy local products from people they know as often as possible.
"We're just really going for as natural as we can get, as homemade as we can get," Evan says.
Business has grown every week since he opened last winter. The most regular customer, 90-year-old Ken Germain, stops in every day on his way home from work - or any other day Mud Puddle is open. Now in his 57th year of selling advertising specialties such as pens and calendars, Germain is a man of regular habits. He always orders Hawaiian pizza.
"Only the pineapple," he says. "And the root beer. Only the root beer."
Well, "The Works" - three cheeses, four veggies and two meats, laced with homemade sauce - isn't bad, either. But the attitude might be the best part.
The economy's down, but it will be back up. From 19 to 90, the workers with plans are the ones who will make it happen.