Lots of black ink now
Nearly a decade ago, a tiny group of monks in this rural stretch of western Wisconsin realized they might have been too successful at following a vow of poverty.
Their income a pittance, their home desperately in need of repair and with few prospects for help, the six monks of the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank prayed for divine intervention -- and brainstormed within the brotherhood for businesses they might start.
One day as Father Bernard McCoy was printing out entrepreneurial ideas from the monastery’s aging computer, an idea came to him: ink -- for printer cartridges.
“Nine hundred years ago, our forefathers were charged with making ink and creating the tools for illuminating manuscripts,” said McCoy, 40, chief executive of the company they would found. “We figured, ‘Why can’t we do the same thing now?’ ”
Today, thanks to LaserMonks Inc., which sells computer printing and office supplies over the Internet -- the abbey is rich. LaserMonks pulled in about $4 million in sales last fiscal year, and is expected to reach nearly $7 million in 2007.
The bounty has posed an incongruity. It has allowed the monastery to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to nonprofit groups around the world. But it has also brought a standard of living that could be seen as excessive -- for monks, at least.
They own a plane to take them around the country to give motivational speeches to would-be entrepreneurs. They bought two purebred Peruvian Paso horses. They’ve built a private art studio for one monk with a talent for oil painting, and a well-stocked wood shop for another skilled in sculpture. They’ve splurged on an elaborate model train set and matching 1950s river town in the basement.
How, the monks now regularly ask themselves, do you maintain a simple spiritual life when you’ve become a multi- millionaire?
They answer most often with a grin and a shrug.
“Ours is supposed to be a life of detachment,” said Brother David Klecker, 31. “But it’s hard to be truly detached when you can be so comfortable.”
Klecker should know. The abbey’s success has allowed Klecker, trained as a software engineer, the luxury of buying digital video equipment and top-of-the-line editing software used by Hollywood visual effects teams to create vocational videos for YouTube.
“I don’t care whether you’re an executive on Wall Street or a monk in the Midwest, the human spirit is, like it or not, pretty universal,” said Charles Elson, director of the University of Delaware’s Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance.
“Just because you’re a monk, it doesn’t mean you’re exempt from asking the same questions: How much do you enjoy your success? And how much do you give away to help others?”
Each morning around 4, a digital bell gently tolls in the two-story, tan-colored abbey, where bay windows look out onto rolling hills of emerald-green cornstalks and dense groves of oak trees.
On the second floor, the monks rise from their rough-hewn beds. Each sleeps in a modest cell, no bigger than a large walk-in closet. In the dark, the men slip first into casual attire -- jeans and button-down shirts on cooler days, shorts and T-shirts when the weather turns warm -- and then don their robes. The white tunic, with full sleeves that drape over their hands like fabric bells, is paired with a simple black scapular.
They head downstairs to the abbey’s main living area and chapel.
Structuring their days around the credo ora et labora (pray and work), the monks gather eight times a day to chant and pray. In between, they help a trio of lay workers with bookkeeping. They develop marketing plans and take customer inquiries about the latest deals on toner.
“I also cook some meals and clean the toilets every Friday,” McCoy said. “What other CEO can say that?”
The entrepreneurial spirit that has driven LaserMonks to success is as innate for Cistercians as their fondness for Gregorian chant.
The order historically has been innovative, as members tended to come from well- educated upper-class families, said E. Rozanne Elder, director of the Institute of Cistercian Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.
In the Middle Ages, the order engineered water sources to generate power and create central heating systems. Cistercian monks became renowned for their meticulous hand-copying of religious texts.
“Whatever the most up-to-date way to support themselves, they did it,” Elder said. “It was thought that no matter how marginal the land or opportunity, through thrift and hard work the Cistercians would make it prosperous.”
Such was the case with the Cistercian abbey here in western Wisconsin. The order first set up a monastery in 1928 in Oconomowoc, about 30 miles west of Milwaukee. Drawn to the region’s rich farmland and strong Catholic community, the monks moved into a manor house and began raising livestock.
But as the area’s population grew and nearby Oconomowoc Lake evolved into a popular tourist spot, the monks found it increasingly difficult to find solitude for prayer, McCoy said.
In the mid-1980s, a group of monks decided to relocate about 160 miles to the northwest, to a stretch of farmland outside Sparta (pop. 8,700). They relied heavily on farm leases and renters to pay their bills, and used the profits to buy more real estate around their 600 acres.
But their quarters were far from comfortable. For years, their sanctuary was a double-wide trailer with a leaky roof. The home “was a dump,” McCoy said, with “a heater that froze in the winter and crickets in the vents.”
Just as they finished work on a new chapel and the first wing of the monastery in 1995, crop prices fell and their rental income dwindled to nearly nothing. Their options were limited by the small number of men who called the abbey home and could help pull in enough money to pay the bills.
McCoy led his brethren in trying to find a solution. Between prayers, they wandered along the gravel roads that crisscross their farmland and tossed around ideas.
Should they embrace Wisconsin’s dairy roots and make cheese? After all, Trappists in Spencer, Mass., turn local fruits into jams and preserves. Grow grapes and bottle wine? Monks in Oregon have built a massive warehouse and store rare vintages for collectors.
“There are only five of us, ranging in age from 31 to 50, healthy enough to work,” McCoy said. (The abbey’s sixth monk, retired Abbot Blaise Fuez, 85, lives in a residential nursing facility nearby.)
“We didn’t have enough hands to do the work and still have time to pray.”
The ideas kept rolling in -- grow gourmet shiitake mushrooms? Christmas trees? Build a luxury golf course on the land?
It was while McCoy was printing a list of the proposals that inspiration hit. His printer ran out of ink.
He began comparison shopping on the Internet for a replacement toner cartridge. The prices made him blanch: $200 or more for one. The most expensive would be nearly enough to cover a third of the monthly grocery bill.
Calling vendors in search of a discount, McCoy discovered that the companies were willing to sell to him at a discount if he bought in bulk, just as they would to bigger retail chains. The monks told local schools and churches about their plan to get cheap ink and launched a not-for-profit company to place a group order. Word spread, and soon the abbey’s phone rang steadily with Catholic schools and rural parishes seeking savings.
In the fall of 2002, the monks launched a website and became an online clearinghouse for printer cartridges. Envisioning themselves as a “monkish” version of Amazon.com, they focused on two things: low prices and marketing themselves as trustworthy business folks.
With the slogan “Saving You Money, Serving Those In Need,” the company pulled in $2,000 in Internet sales in fiscal 2002. Three years later, as the monks expanded to include other office supplies, business furniture and computer laptop accessories, the enterprise grossed more than $2 million.
The monks don’t take a salary, though the for-profit enterprise does pay taxes.
After the costs of running the company and maintaining the abbey are covered -- which eat up about 85% of the profits -- the monks distribute what remains to several dozen charities, including a Vietnamese school for orphans, a Costa Rican group that helps the children of impoverished farmers and a Minnesota summer camp for children with AIDS.
It also funds its own Torchlight Foundation, which helps schools pay for curriculum to teach socially responsible business practices.
In addition to what they sell, the monks also take e-mail prayer requests. It is a way for the cloistered community to reach out to the world, said McCoy, and to interact on something other than finances.
At first, the monks received an e-mail or two a day.
Now they get nearly 500 prayer requests a month. Each gets printed out and stacked carefully on a table just outside the abbey’s refectory. The monks sift through the pile several times a day, plucking out the pleas that move them. The pile, restocked every few days, is routinely 4 inches thick. Once the prayers are completed, the requests are carefully boxed and stored in the abbey’s basement.
Some writers ask for help finding a better job. Others plead for divine aid in selling their homes in a slumping real estate market.
On a recent afternoon, one request catches McCoy’s eye: “My wife’s wake was last night and the funeral is this morning. . . . I’m feeling just a little under the weather. Pray for me to be strong.”
The monk, on his way to a meeting with the company’s management team, grabs it. Work can wait.
Standing in the hallway, in front of a half-scale statue of St. Bernard, McCoy bows his head, closes his eyes and prays.
As their financial woes eased, the monks began to enjoy themselves. After all, they reasoned, living a simple life didn’t mean a life without pleasure.
McCoy, a longtime member of the National Assn. of Priest Pilots, jumped at the chance to get a plane. He figured the 1969 four-seater prop plane they found would allow the monks to inexpensively travel to other monasteries to swap ideas and develop joint business ventures.
The horses? An indulgence for exercise and communing with nature. But the thoroughbreds also are being trained for use by friends in Texas who run an animal-based therapy retreat for Iraq war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress.
Sometimes, though, real temptation wins out.
Father Robert Keffer has always had a fondness for model trains. So when he received a $50 train set as a Christmas gift several years ago, his fellow monks happily encouraged him to use a discarded sheet of plywood to set up the tracks.
“Little did we know that Pandora’s Box had been opened,” McCoy said.
At first, Keffer scavenged through boxes of donated goods to find material to build a tiny railway station and paint to draw out miniature lawns. Then he began searching online shops and on EBay for discounts on thimble-sized elm trees, general stores the size of shoe boxes, and dozens of figurines no bigger than his thumbnail.
Eventually, he traveled to model train shows across the state, looking for new additions to make his Mississippi River town and its rail line more authentic. The set grew to more than 100 times its original 4-square-foot size, filling most of a large room in the basement.
Recently, the monks agreed that enough is enough. The train set has to go. Keffer has contacted train museums across the country in search of a new home for his creation.
The space won’t go to waste. The monks are planning to launch a new business there -- making and bottling hard apple cider.
The men understand that their good fortune could easily fade. God giveth -- and God taketh away. In some ways, that might be a relief.
“We’ve lived the simple life before, and we can do it again,” Klecker said. “At least we could stop worrying about losing it all.”
But for now, the calls don’t stop. Not even for God.
One recent afternoon, the monks were silently shuffling inside the candle-lighted sanctuary, adjusting the black aprons over their white robes. As they prepared for one of their daily prayer services, a soft golden light filtered through the bay windows and warmed the gray-walled room.
Carefully opening an illuminated manuscript, the men took a deep breath. And, as one, they began chanting in Latin.
Kyrie eleison. Lord have mercy. Christe eleison. Christ have mercy. Kyrie eleison.
Down the hall, an office phone rang softly, a faint counterpoint to the somber devotions. The monks ignored it.
A few minutes passed. The phone rang again. The monks continued to pray.
The phone rang a third time, just as McCoy murmured a final “amen.” With a quiet sigh, he bowed before the simple wooden crucifix hanging behind the altar and walked quickly to his office to catch the call.
“Good afternoon, LaserMonks! Greetings and peace,” McCoy said cheerfully. “How may I help you?”
