SOLAQUA: Sundog Solar
by Ross Rice
Upon entering the office area, something just looks a little weird, and it takes me a good couple of minutes to figure it out: there are magnets stuck all over almost every wall. As someone with a home office, this concept is totally working for me.
Jody Rael invites me into the conference room. I am instantly reminded of a theatre professor I once knew: older, wiser, north-to-south cranial hair migration and compact, with an avuncular charm, a vitality and energy—a look in his eye that said he knew something he knew everybody else wanted to know, and is glad to finally be asked.
OK, I’m asking. What the heck is going on here? Where’s all the cool stuff from the website? What is the plan here, and is it in effect? And how did you get that stuff to stick to the walls?
Very patiently, and undoubtedly with no small amount of practice, Jody Rael explains to me his grand idea. Something called: Solaqua.
Jody’s father Sol Rael had a good business in the City back in the day as a major manufacturer of magnetic photo albums, and developing the magnetic playing card in 1966. Quite often, weekends were spent upstate in Columbia County, instilling an appreciation of the area in young Jody. Magnets were always a passion, so it was no surprise that Jody found himself in the family business. But there were major problems. Korean companies were flooding the market with dirt-cheap photo albums, undercutting American companies to the point of elimination. You know the story.
An old family friend and ex-salesman cornered Jody at a trade show, and counseled dropping the photo album stuff, concentrating on the magnet business, and moving upstate... CONTINUE...
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