Brass Media listed among top 500 fastest-growing companies

By Matt Neznanski
Gazette-Times reporter

The woman sitting behind the front desk at Brass Media's headquarters on Circle Boulevard in Corvallis on Thursday couldn't say if her boss was in the building.

She wasn't hiding anything. She wasn't the receptionist, she was an accountant, and the company was using every available desk to fit their rapidly growing staff. And she was so new she hadn't even met the CEO, Bryan Sims.

"It's a crazy thing as fast as things are growing," Sims said.

Brass Media was selected as one of Inc. Magazine's 500 Fastest Growing Private companies in the US. To qualify, companies must be based in the U.S., privately held, independent businesses that have had at least $200,000 in revenue in 2004, and $2 million in 2007.

Started in Sims' dorm room and his parents' garage in 2003 when he was just 19, Brass Media now has formal offices in Corvallis and has grown to a staff of 35, and is growing at a rate of nearly one new hire per month.

"We made a big banner that we haven't gotten up yet," said Steve Sims, Bryan's father and chief operating officer of Brass. "With all the layoffs and everything, we wanted people to know someone is hiring."

First published in 2004, Brass Magazine is distributed through financial institutions. The institutions buy copies of the magazine for their members in exchange for advertising space. Essentially, Brass creates a specialized magazine for each client.

Last year, Brass Media began partnering with school systems in New York and Wisconsin to give students copies of the magazine and provide teachers with online tools to further lessons about money in the classroom.

Next year, the company will add Oregon schools to its student program. Inquiries from school districts as far away as Virginia have started to roll in.

Brass Magazine is now distributed to 450,000 people quarterly. With the addition of the Oregon schools, Sims expects circulation to top 500,000.

Brass has rapidly expanded from renting an office suite at the corner of Northwest Circle Boulevard and Highland Drive to owning the building. Then the building across the street. And this summer, the company bought a nearby church and is currently renovating it into office space.

Besides the printed publication, Brass provides Web products and electronic media, leading its new hires to stretch beyond editors to programmers.

Brass' product, business model and current events have all conspired to put it in a prime position to emerge even stronger in a down economy.

With increased scrutiny on personal finance and a growing desire to teach young people how to understand and manage their money, teachers and financial institutions are turning to Brass for help.

"The focus now is to fix the [Wall Street] problem. The next step is finding out how we prevent it in the future and what caused it," said Bryan Sims. "You're going to see a big desire for information. That's where we're trying to position ourselves."