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Business & Tech

On the Job: Brewing Up a Dream

Jeff Trevaskis is pouring himself into his passion, the Manzanita Brewing Co.

Jeff Trevaskis remembers an earlier time when he wasn’t getting the same buzz out of life that he’s getting today.

And it has nothing to do with sampling the .

He recalls the days he worked in software testing for Eastman Kodak when the hours – and his energy -- seemed to drag along.

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“At 4 o’clock or 3 o’clock on most days at Kodak I’d be falling asleep in a meeting just trying to keep my eyes open, grinning and bearing it,” he says.

Then Kodak gave him a gift that keeps on giving. It laid him off.

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After seven years with the company and a 25-year career in the field with several firms, Trevaskis was let go when Kodak outsourced his group’s work to Singapore.

That was in December of 2009, just over a year and a half ago chronologically but a lifetime ago based on what’s happened since.

For a long time, Trevaskis and his good friend and work partner, Garry Pitman, had been talking about going into the beer-making business. Home brewing had been Pitman’s passion, and Trevaskis had caught the bug, too. Suddenly, with both of them out of work at the same time – and with an influx of severance, unused vacation pay and profit-sharing money – the talk turned into action.

They pooled their resources and started just about two weeks after they were laid off.

Since January of 2010 – when they signed a lease for their property at a business park on Prospect Avenue in Santee -- the brewery has taken root.

The pace, the growth and the workload have been dizzying, but Trevaskis – the company’s president and CEO – is now doing something he loves.

“Now it’s next thing, next thing,” he says of his long days and 100-plus hour weeks. “I try to get home at 7 or 8 to see the kids … and then work after they go to sleep until 11 or 12 or 1. It doesn’t feel like I’m working that much until you sit back and think, holy crap! But no, it’s definitely exciting every day.”

“We’re not there yet”

While Manzanita’s growth has been rapid, it isn’t yet making a profit.

As Trevaskis says, “It would be nice to make money. Be nice to be able to pay my mortgage and that kind of stuff. We’re not there yet, but we’re working on it.”

Still, at 18 months in, Manzanita is about where Trevaskis thought it would be after three years.

“Either that means I really suck at planning, or we’re doing great,” he says, laughing.

He says he and Pitman would have started the company even if they hadn’t been laid off, but losing their jobs gave them a kick-start and the time they needed to do it right. Without that, he says, they wouldn’t be where they are today. This Saturday, in fact, they'll host a one-year anniversary party to celebrate their official grand opening of July 10 last year.

The operation has expanded from 2,000 square feet to 6,000 square feet, and production is now up to about 120 barrels a month (about 3,700 gallons). Trevaskis says Manzanita is averaging about 25 percent growth per quarter, and has sold about 20,000 bottles since it started bottling beer in January. Its beer is sold in about 70 restaurants and bars and about 250 stores around San Diego County.

The growth has been a testament to the work ethic of Trevaskis and Pitman.

Pitman, who until recently was working at Manzanita while also holding down another job, is head brewer and also brought a lot of fabrication experience from his time working at NASSCO in San Diego.

Trevaskis, who turns 50 this week, has done everything from welding and fabrication to architectural planning, bookkeeping, marketing, sales, delivery and bottling the beer by hand.

They remain the company’s only two employees, though they’ve gotten help from Garry’s brother, Trevaskis’ wife Tanya, and several volunteers and interns.

“There are books that have been written that say don’t even look at doing this for under $1 million,” says Trevaskis. “I’m going to write a book next year, ‘How to shoestring together a brewery.’ Because we built all our own equipment, we’ve fabricated most of the things and we’ve gotten help from a guy who loves our beer who comes in and welds for us.”

Whatever they could do themselves, they did.

“We are totally up to the elbows,” says Trevaskis.

In his past life, Trevaskis served as a director, vice president or project manager for large companies, so he was used to planning and budgeting. But not with his own bankroll.

“The hardest thing was to say ‘Hey, wait a minute, this is my frickin’ money,’ ” he says, laughing. “So do you use the pencil until it’s three inches or do you use it until you get to the eraser? … I was using every source I had to not spend money to keep this thing alive.”

Now, says Trevaskis, the company has reached another step in its growth. He and Pitman are seeking $500,000 in investments to expand their operation and take it to the next level. By purchasing new equipment, they’ll be able to initially take their production from 120 barrels a week to 300, and then double that – and more. It will enable them to market to Los Angeles, Riverside and Orange counties and Arizona.

Yet as a craft beer maker, Trevaskis has no visions of grandeur.

He and Pitman are in it to make money, certainly, but they’re also in it to make the kinds of beers they like. They have five core beers, from a light ale called Riverwalk Blonde to a darker ale, Gillespie Brown, and they’ve started making seasonal beers, too.

But they know they’re not pushing aside the beer giants who make up about 94 percent of U.S. sales.

“We figured it out, and it would take us 300 years to produce what Budweiser does in a day,” he says of their current production.

At home in Santee

Trevaskis grew up in Maryland and Pennsylvania and got his degree in electrical engineering at Widener University in Chester, Pa. before making his way out to San Diego to work for Rockwell in 1996.

He lives with his wife and two children in Jamul, but now spends most of his time on the job in Santee – a place they picked because it was between Jamul and Pitman’s home in Temecula. Santee, he says, has been the perfect location, and a place they want to stay.

For Trevaskis, it’s been a lot of work – with more ahead. But from the beginning, he hasn’t lost any sleep.

“No,” he says. “God’s going to take care of me. I just need to follow. … It doesn’t keep me up at all. It wakes me up early some days, though, because once my brain starts going, I’m done.”

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