Aeron Lifestyle Technology: The smell of progress in the air

It's famously been said, 'If you believe it will work out, you'll see opportunities and if you believe it won't, you'll see obstacles.”

That is likely why Aeron Lifestyle Technology co-founder Monica Hadley trusted the process more than two decades ago and helped a 20-something kid from the Fairfield community, Jeffrey Smith, create the original version of their current lifestyle line back in 1996.

'We custom design and manufacture products mostly in the air-fragrance industry, although we do some other things, too,” explained the company's CFO Hadley.

'It started when Jeffrey invented an air diffuser that plugged into the car cigarette lighter and I decided to help him launch a company for it.”

They added Patrick Kosar as an investor in 2000 and he now presides as the CEO and chairman of the board while Nate Orme-Johnson was the company's first salesperson before rising to the rank of company president.

Before the beginning

While Aeron was effectively launched in 1996, Hadley started Fairfield Accounting Services in 1983 and was also involved with her father's company Sun-Sprout Systems after he died in 1981.

'We manufactured commercial sprout-growing equiptment like alfalfa and bean sprouts,” explained Hadley. 'We licensced the tech, sold the equiptment, seed and packaging to a network of growers throughout the United States with some overseas business as well.”

Nowadays

Aeron has 'about 35” employees that work in Fairfield with a few additional people working remotely in Illinois.

Those roleplayers do everything from sales, administration, purchasing, customer service, design, engineering, product development and marketing.

'All of the office-type stuff,” said Hadley.

They also own a factory in Mason City with 50-60 employees where 15 percent of the product comes from, with rest coming from China and Mexico.

'We have some very large customers that we work with and our portfolio with them continues to increase.”

They have also needed to hire support now that they are launching their own brands, where before, they strictly did private labels for other companies.

'When we first started out, we had the Drive Time brand, but that fell out as we did more and more for these large private label customers,” explained Hadley.

'Drive Time is available at some convenience stores, and other home brands we create you can find online at

thegiftofscent.com,” she said.

Appreciation

'As a company, we like to give back to the community and to our employees first,” shared Hadley. 'We have a really good bonus program and for the size of our company we have really decent benefits. We feel that it benefits our employees if we are strong in the community and giving back, so we've been long-time donors and sponsors of the artists' series at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center and more recently, we did a Habitat for Humanity home and the Sieda holiday program. This year, we're going to another habitat home.”

Progress

'Growth in itself is one measure of progress and from growth we like to be able to do better and do more for our employees and the community,” said Hadley. 'Growth in itself is not as important as what you do with your growth. It allows us to hire more people and provide more jobs. All of these jobs are important to keep in small Iowa towns to keep the communities strong. You have to be able to attract and keep people who get the education and if they can't find a job here, they'll leave and we want to help keep them here. People want to live here and we want to help people live here. I graduated from Fairfield High and so did my children.”