photo by: Elvyn Jones

Shine Adams examines a phoenix-shaped air freshener produced in the Phoenix Woodworking shop on Saturday, Dec. 29, 2018. The business gives people with employment challenges a chance to get back into the workforce.

Second chances are what Phoenix Woodworking is all about, and that starts with the company itself, its founder says.

The goal of Shine Adams’ new woodworking shop, which opened in September at the Dwayne Peaslee Technical Training Center, is to hire the homeless, prison parolees, recovering addicts and others with employment challenges and give them a second chance to rejoin the workforce. But it’s not the first time Adams has started a company like this — until about two years ago, he was the owner of Sun Cedar, a nonprofit with a similar mission.

But Sun Cedar closed when Adams was forced to declare bankruptcy as a result of legal bills that followed a lawsuit from Car-Freshner Corporation. Car-Freshner, which sells vehicle air fresheners, claimed that the tree-shaped air fresheners that Sun Cedar was making infringed upon its trademarked product, Adams said.

Despite that setback, Adams didn’t give up his dream of having a shop in Lawrence that provided those with employment challenges an opportunity for a fresh start.

“People with employment gaps on their resumes have a real problem getting employed,” he said. “When they write down a work history on an application and a reference, they have a much better chance of getting a job.”

And after Sun Cedar closed, supporters such as former State Sen. Wint Winter and Steve Lopes, former interim director of Headquarters Inc., helped Adams realize his dream. They invested in Phoenix Woodworking and still play big roles, with Winter serving as treasurer and pro bono attorney and Lopes serving as president of the company’s board.

“Steve and Wint had my back,” he said. “When Sun Cedar went under, I told them if I ever had enough cash together I was going to start another company. It was my passion that I never gave up.”

Although Phoenix Woodworking shares the same mission as Sun Cedar, they are different kinds of organizations.

“Sun Cedar was a nonprofit,” Adams said. “Phoenix Woodworking is a public benefit corporation.”

It was the first public benefit corporation chartered in the state after then-Gov. Sam Brownback signed legislation in 2017 authorizing their creation, Lopes said. A public benefit corporation is a hybrid of a nonprofit and a traditional corporation, he said. Public benefit corporations are required to pay property taxes, although they are exempt from paying sales tax on raw materials needed for the manufacture of products.

But the big difference is the goals of the public benefit corporations, Lopes said. Instead of trying to maximize profits for investors, the goal of a public benefit corporation is the furtherance of some public good, he said.

“Our investors aren’t looking for a return on their investment,” he said. “There may be a return when the company grows, but that is not why you invest in a public benefit corporation.”

Public benefit corporations are also different from nonprofits in that their funding comes from sales and not donations, Adams said.

“That’s good, because I wasn’t very good at fundraising,” he said. “I now get to focus on sales.”

Adams said he is an investor in Phoenix Woodworking and its salaried executive director. To avoid a conflict of interest, he is not on the company’s board of directors, he said.

Phoenix Woodworking has already had success in getting people back into the workforce, Adams said. A man who ended up at the Lawrence Community Shelter after his North Dakota home burned down found another full-time job after working at the shop for a couple of months, and a current employee who started at the shop after kicking a history of drug and alcohol abuse will soon leave for another job, he said.

“I think most people can relate to fresh starts,” he said. “We all have to start fresh at some point in our lives, either because we move to a new community or from a divorce. It’s just that some people have to start again from a more difficult place.”

His expectations of employees are the same as most other employers, Adams said. He will fire an employee who doesn’t show up to work or one who has a substance-abuse relapse, he said, and he is also truthful when potential employers call him for references.

The new business does not make the tree-shaped air fresheners that led to Sun Cedar’s legal woes, Adams said. It does make air fresheners shaped like phoenixes, the state of Kansas and other states, as well as special orders with one-off designs, Adams said. All of these products have designs burned into them with a small industrial laser, Adams said. In addition, the shop makes lapel pins with enameled resin designs, he said. Products can be viewed at phoenixsawdust.com.

He has a few out-of-state customers and also markets at six Lawrence locations, including The Merc, the Striped Cow, Anomaly and Village Witch, Adams said. His goal is to develop a similar number of retail outlets in Kansas City, Topeka, Wichita and other cities in the region.

“I think if we could do that, we could hire about 10 people,” he said. “That’s the goal.”