About Marc & Stacy Pierce
The UNSTOPABLE couple...(as many refer to them).
Marc & Stacy Pierce met during a church youth group hey ride when Marc was 17 and Stacy was 15. They have been inseparable since. Marc and Stacy have been the successful owners of AVL Systems Design since 2011. With the two of them together, they are unstoppable both in business and personal ventures. When asked how they became the people they are today, both answers are similar in that they had interesting and trial filled childhoods growing up. Each express snippets of there child hood below and how they got to where they are today.
A little about Marc:
Marc grew up with little in his his life. He has no issues talking about his past and how he grew up, and was greatly affected by his as it drove him to who he is today. Marc grew up in Oklahoma City with is mother and little brother. His dad was not around very often, only when he was not incarcerated or his parents were not split-up for whatever reason at the time. His most memorable times with his father were when, as a child, he and his little brother would go behind grocery stores to "dumpster dive" with their dad. It was not for fun, but to see what food they could find, and any other items of use. Needless to say, he did not have much of a childhood as children should have. His mother worked part time at the local Bruams store, so money was practically non existent. Dumpster diving was a means to basically survive. His father was in and out of jail and passed away in 2014. Marc takes his childhood to heart and strives to be the opposite of his father and upbringing in almost every way. At the age of 13 he started earning money by mowing lawns and spray painting addresses on curbs for houses in the "much nicer" neighborhoods, a couple of blocks away from his "not so nice" neighborhood. At age 16, Marc got a job at Hobby Lobby in the warehouse sweeping floors and taking trash out. Marc knew at an early age that he wanted to be in electronics, specifically audio and video electronics. Marc started working at Radio Shack when he was 17 . He quickly moved up to assistant store manager and was asked to run his own store within 2 years of working at Radio Shack. He always had at least 1 job, if not 2 at the same time, even when he was at school. Determination to not be lazy, careless and goalless, like his examples of his upbringing.
A little about Stacy:
Stacy was just as dedicated and motivated as Marc growing up to be successful and never complained about work. Stacy grew up in Edmond, Oklahoma and has a special needs bother. She was given the responsibility to take care of him when she was just a child herself. She was forced to grow up fast and learn what it meant to care for someone, especially if they have special needs. That is shown in her today with how much and how deeply she cares for everyone at AVL Stacy's dad was a federal bank examiner and would travel all over the US. This caused the need for her to become part care taker for her little brother as his down-syndrome and autism was not easy for her mother to handle all by herself. Stacy taught voice lessons just after they married for several years, and was very successful. Stacy had on average 35-40 students a week and held end of year recitals debuting her students in front of hundreds of parents, family members and friends. Stacy's recitals were so large that she had to rent out large auditoriums just to hold the people that would attend. Stacy started work as a nanny for family friends at 13 years old. Once she turned 15, she started working at Del Rancho as a waitress. She worked both as a nanny and waitress, as she was determined to be successful in life and do what was best for her and her family. Just like Marc, she never stopped working from 13 years old to this day. Stacy has always been driven to be the best at wat she does. She will fight for what she believes is the right and moral thing to do in every aspect of her life. Stacy is the most brutally honest person, as she will tell you what you need to hear, whether it is what that person wants to hear or not. At the same time, she never puts anyone down or gossip about others. When people get to know her, they are drawn to her as she will do anything for the people that are her friends.
Now, A little about how they are known as unstopped to those who really know them:
When Marc and Stacy met (late 90's), they were both just getting to know the real work and how it works. Once they met that fall night at the church hey ride, they had no idea that each other were fit together like a puzzle, but both felt like the other was driven to progress in life, both professionally and personally. They dated for several years before getting engaged in 2002. Marc was in school in Arizona determined to be an Audio Engineer, while Stacy was in School in Oklahoma going for her Vocal performance degree. Once both of them graduated and were married, they started out as a young couple learning what real life was like. Having a mortgage, paying bills etc... Both worked hard during there younger years (20's).
Marc was told about AVL in 2001 by a friend who had started working at AVL just months prior. When Marc graduated school he immediately went in for an interview with the owner of AVL at the time. One question that just about everyone gets asked in an interview is "so what do you want to be/do in 5-10 years". Marc's answer was both ignorant & ego filled at the time. Marc said "I either want to buy your business or start one like it and be your competitor". In just about any other interview, that would have probably ended it right there and no job offer would have ben given. However, for some reason, Marc was offered the job and started in 2001. His first position was an intern making $7.50 per hour. He worked at AVL as an intern in the installation department for 12 months. Marc was then offered a full time job with AVL as an installer. Marc was the first full time installer at AVL in 2002, and was the 5th employee of the company. As people came an went at AVL, Marc stayed through the good times and the bad. He took pay cuts and sometimes even got delayed paychecks at times as the current owner could not always pay. Marc still held on to his goals of buying or starting a new company and did not let those times change his mid. Even though moments came and went of wanting to just find another job, as all his friends and most of his family would tell him to do. It would have been easier and he could have made a lot more money. Still, Marc continued at AVL with his goal in mind. Before he could even start that process, he knew that he had to at least hold every position in the company so that he could learn how everything works. After being an installer for 3 years, he became a project design engineer for 2 years. Marc then was promoted to Director of Engineering. He was in charge of all designs and engineer documents that AVL produced. Marc held that position for 2 years, then was promoted to General Manager of the company where he was over purchasing, engineering & Installation. He continued in that roll for the next 3 years. During his roll as the GM he quickly inserted himself into sales, bidding and accounting. He was determined to know all that could be learned about running a real work business. He quickly learned that the current owner had very little knowledge of the business an how it ran, surprisingly. He would let others run it for him while he focused primarily on sales. Marc saw that it could be done so much better and that so much money was being lost and even missed. In 2008, the owner expressed to Marc that he was ready to close the business as he did not know how to grow it any further and wanted to move on to being a relator. Marc immediately stated that he is ready to start the acquisition of purchasing AVL and asked the owner to keep it running until he could come up with the funds to buy it. The owner said he would for a maximum of 3 years, then he would liquidate everything and close down if it did not happen. During those 3 years, Marc worked hard at continuing to learn about the functions of each position. he would always ask how something was done and would listen to each employee talk about what they liked and did not like about how things were processed through the company from sales to final completion of a job. Also, during the time of preparing to purchase the company, Marc knew that he had to get Stacy involved somehow prior to the acquisition. There was an over whelming need for a positive, smart and an eye for employees wellbeing. Marc has now seen the ever lacking since of professional business acremen and aesthetics in the company. Marc knew that getting Stacy involved would crack the door for everything to improve. Stacy was in the height of her voice lesson carrier and had not even considered doing anything else at the time. They also both wanted to start trying to have a child. Somehow Marc was able to get Stacy to start working at the front desk part time, simply answering phones and filing. Immediately, it was obvious that Stacy had something within her that Marc knew he could not go without if he were to purchase the business. Marc was vey good at the technical and sales side of the business, however he knew that he would have to have someone h trusted to handle the financial and internal functions of the business.