Professor juggles teaching with entrepreneurship

George Marakas is no ordinary IU professor. \nIn fact, he's much more than just that. Since the fall of 2002, Marakas has juggled his associate professor position at the Kelley School of Business in Information Systems and his own business on his back. \nAlmost two years ago, Marakas, CEO of Indiana Audio Mastering and Duplicating, opened a music plant that did just that -- mastered and duplicated CDs for bands and businesses. \nBut originally, Indiana Audio was a resource to facilitate to production of Marakas' own music.\n"I've been in the music business since I was 13," he said. "When I got here to Bloomington, I was still writing music, and then created a partnership. We (my partner and I) had written enough music to put out a couple of albums. I did it because it was cheap enough to produce my own music."\nBut shortly after Marakas opened the business, the staff didn't have enough time to record his own music. They were too busy taking care of other people's needs.\nAnd maybe the demands of Indiana Audio made the music plant what it is today.\nToday, Indiana Audio's primary function in the music business is CD duplicating and mastering. \n"One of our clients is NASCAR," Marakas said. "We make promotional CDs for them. We also make promotional CDs for apartment complexes."\nKevin Plummer, operations manager of Indiana Audio, said they also master and duplicate for bands and up-and-coming artists.\n"We bring in a big variety (of clients)," he said. "Bands are 99 percent (of our clients)."\nThe bands Plummer talks about are not just from around Bloomington, either. \n"We have people from Puerto Rico to Canada to Bloomington," Plummer said. \nThe reason Indiana Audio pulls such diverse groups of musicians is because of pricing and deals for the mastering and duplicating of their CDs, Plummer said.\n"(Indiana Audio) is a good outlet to find out how much their music is going to cost them," he said.\nBut Plummer said an abundance of their clients are local bands just starting up, trying to get music out to their fans.\n Deric Rush is a part of one of these local bands. But Rush is also Marakas' partner and member of the rock 'n' roll band, the Deric Rush Band, which is a loyal contributer to Indiana Audio.\n "As far as my involvment in the future, it will definitly be a direct line to (Indiana Audio) to get excellent quality of audio," Rush said. "George (Marakas) gives super-quality work."\nWhile Plummer runs the overall production and business of Indiana Audio during the day, Marakas is hard at work at the business school sharing his real-life experience in the music business with business school students. It may seem difficult for one man to be CEO of a business, while at the same time preparing students to venture out into the same field, but Marakas finds a way.\n"IU is my primary obligation, so I spend time at Indiana Audio on evenings and weekends," he said. "I juggle time between the two. And since I have my responsibility at IU, the day-to-day tasks are carried out by Kevin Plummer. I'm the CEO; I'm involved in strategy positions, approvals of advertising, and I actually do great deal of mastering."\nSurprisingly, both of his careers sometimes overlap. \n"A lot of the technology is the same type of technology that I'm responsible for training business students in the individualized major program and serve as an adviser to the individualized major program students who are going into the music business."\nAnd although it's hard to imagine carrying on both an associate professor position in the Kelley School of Business and CEO of a major CD mastering and duplicating business, Marakas finds his work at Indiana Audio rewarding.\n"Watching it (the business) grow is incredibly rewarding," he said. "Another perk is I get to hear an incredible amount of music no one has even heard yet, and that's a lot of fun."\nWith juggling these two demanding careers, Karakas is in no way familiar with the words, "free time."\n"What's free time?" he said. "Then again, all my time is free time -- I choose to spend it one way or another, doing the things I enjoy."\nPlummer also finds his job at Indiana Audio rewarding, but for a different reason. He's touched by artists coming to pick up their CDs for the very first time.\n"Several times artists will come in and visualize what they want their CD to look like, but until they have it in their hands, it's not a completed project," he said. "Sometimes they start crying -- it's touching."\n-- Contact copy chief Stacie Vasko at svasko@indiana.edu.