As an inventor, Dan Gelbart has few equals.
As a businessman, he's a non-starter.
Luckily, he knows it.
"I knew from the beginning that I was hopeless at business," says Mr. Gelbart, co-founder and president of Creo Products Inc. "So I didn't try to do it by myself."
Instead, Mr. Gelbart focused on technology and let others take care of operations at Creo, a Burnaby, B.C., company that makes digital systems that transfer computer files directly onto printing plates.
The strategy has helped Creo grow, conduct a successful initial public offering last July, and last week announce a $537-million (U.S.) deal to buy part of much-larger competitor Scitex Corp.
But while Mr. Gelbart claims to be a business bumbler, he has strong opinions on how a company should be run.
At Creo, concepts such as teamwork are apparently piped in with the company water supply, and Mr. Gelbart is quick to say he's not the only watchdog of corporate standards.
Creo chief executive officer Amos Michelson, chief financial officer Tom Kordyback and chief operating officer Mark Dance, all key players behind the Scitex deal, have "exactly the same vision" of how a company should operate, Mr. Gelbart says.
Mr. Michelson, in particular, has been a prime mover behind Creo's ascent since he joined the company in 1991. By all accounts an inspiring leader, Mr. Michelson shuns the limelight and skipped an awards banquet last year at which he and Mr. Gelbart won entrepreneur of the year honours for technology in the Pacific region.
Creo has built a name for its products, computer-to-plate systems that help printers turn out higher-quality work at a lower cost.
But the company has also become known for its culture, which features elements such as a detailed peer-review process which helps determine how many share options employees are entitled to.
The principles of sharing information, and wealth, with employees, date back to 1985 when Mr. Gelbart teamed up with founding partner Ken Spencer.
The two met as employees of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., a satellite imaging company and charter member of Vancouver's high-technology community.
Mr. Gelbart, an Israeli-raised electrical engineer, joined MacDonald Dettwiler shortly after coming to Canada in 1973.
There, he was given free rein to indulge what he calls his "genetic mutation" -- an obsessive desire to build things.
While at MacDonald Dettwiler, Mr. Gelbart developed technology that spawned two new companies: MDI Mobile Data International Inc., acquired in 1988 by the Canadian arm of U.S.-based Motorola Inc., and Cymbolic Sciences International Inc., a digital imaging company -- and Creo competitor -- now based in Bellingham, Wash.
Offered bonuses and shares for his performance, Mr. Gelbart asked for a jig borer instead.
The precision machining instrument was at the time the most sophisticated on the market. Mr. Gelbart asked to have it installed in his basement.
John MacDonald, then the head of MacDonald Dettwiler, happily complied.
"He picked up the phone, called accounting and said, 'Order it today,' " Mr. Gelbart says. "I still remember that warmly, because [Mr. MacDonald]didn't even ask what it was."
Mr. Gelbart also has warm memories of working at MacDonald Dettwiler, which encouraged casual dress and flexible hours long before such notions were mainstream.
The man behind many of those work-place strategies was founding partner Mr. Spencer, who retired from Creo in 1995 but is still on the board.
Today, Mr. Gelbart says the founding principles of Creo have not proved unworkable, as some critics said they would.
"When we started, every employee could pick up the phone and order whatever they needed. And everybody said, 'Well, that will work with 10 people, but wait until you get to be 100 people. You can't run a company like that.' "
Today, he claims, the company still runs like that, although he admits there are many checks and balances.
The idea, he says, is to devote more time and energy to issues that deserve them.
Mark Dance, who will head a new graphic arts group tentatively called Creo/Scitex, says the same principles helped drive the merger.
"I believe that if we hadn't merged, one of us would have gone out of business," Mr. Dance says.
Creo's deal with Scitex, which is subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals and scheduled to close in March, does not eliminate all competition. In the prepress automation market, Creo is up against companies such as Cymbolic, Dainippon Screen Manufacturing Co. Ltd. of Japan, and Afga-Gevaert NV of Germany.
There are also threats from other printing methods, such as xerography, the printing process used in most office copiers.
Creo, however, plans to develop new technology of its own. Mr. Gelbart is cagey about what direction new research might take but says he wants to spend less time on corporate matters and more time "tinkering" in those new directions.
"Amos keeps talking about relative advantage," he says, tossing out another pet Creo term that, in essence, means zeroing in on the elements that can give you a leg up on the competition.
Technological innovation, he says "may be the only area where I have a relative advantage.
"So there's no point for me to get into [corporate]strategy -- no matter how important it is, someone else can do it better."
Wendy Stueck