The company could be located in any upscale office park in the country: 14 manicured acres, pond-side picnic area, modern architecture and, not surprisingly, striking signage.

Hard to believe Rodney’s Custom Cut Sign Company began life in a pickup truck driven by a high school drop-out who developed his work ethic shining shoes, mowing lawns and fixing cars.

The year was 1977. Company founder Rodney Earley was forced to “quituate” high school after 10th grade to tackle a growing mound of medical bills incurred by his father’s heart attack.

“Daddy bought me a (wood) router when I was 12,” he recalls. “Then he’d bring home lots of wooden pallets — he was a real collector. When Momma shared her concerns over the medical bills, I cut up a few pallets, routed in a few phony names, slapped on some paint, took them to the hospital, sold them for five bucks a piece and gave all the money to Momma.”

Business was good. The pick-up was traded for a step van. Fairgrounds flea market space was rented. Days were spent making product. Nights — third shift, to be exact — were spent working for a food clip company where “they taught me how to weld and fabricate” — skills essential to his expansion into the big time.

But it was those little hand-painted wooden signs that led to his first big contract.

“This guy from Golden Corral came by,” Earley recalls, “and wanted a sign for his dog or something. It was like a $12 sale. Next thing you know, we were eating at a Golden Corral and this same guy asked if I’d be interested in doing signs for the restaurant. I sketched a design on a napkin, the napkin made it up the decision tree, and the next thing you know we were doing signs for every Golden Corral in the country.”

Earley had his first big account. Then came Capital Bank, Rex Hospital, Wake County government, North Carolina municipalities and major real estate developers from Atlanta to Dallas. And the list keeps growing.

As a result, that single wood router in a small shed has given way to progressively larger quarters in Cary and Apex before the company moved into its current home — 60,000 square feet of office and high-tech production space in the Holly Springs Industrial Park.

And Earley has another company that sells custom paints and the knowledge to use them: Repeat Interprises. Interprises? “Yeah,” he smiles. “Let’s do it different.”

Despite the changes, some things remain the same.

Signs, dating back to the beginning, fill walls, display stands and a flat-screen television. A 34-member work force, including first employee Johnny Jones, obviously enjoys what they do — using as much creativity on a single bumper sticker as they apply to a 250-square-foot sign topping 7,000 pounds.

It’s a reflection of a basic tenet in Earley’s business philosophy. “You can’t forget where you’ve been or where you came from. That’s how you lose sight of things. You never know when the same guy who wanted that bumper sticker will need a $200,000 sign.”

Advice to other aspiring entrepreneurs?

“In order to have it,” he firmly believes, “you gotta’ want it. The question is how bad you want it. If you don’t want it bad enough, it ain’t gonna’ be there.”

Little doubt Rodney Earley is “there.”