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[bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

This interesting srticle is in tonight's NYT.  There is a small slideshow at 
the link

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The Amish Flock from Farms to Small Businesses 

 J. Kevin Fitzsimons for The New York Times

The Amish have been leaving a quiet life of farming for jobs in small 
businesses. An employee, left, takes special orders and does contractor sales 
in the Keim Lumber Company showroom in Charm, Oh. More Photos > 



 
By GLENN RIFKIN

Published: January 7, 2009 

The Amish, the religious sect that has determinedly kept the modern world at 
bay, have been leaving a quiet life of farming for jobs in small businesses — 
all the while trying to balance their own values with the culture of the 
marketplace. 



>From Farming to Commerce “Their whole intent is to not be caught up in the 
>hustle and bustle of the modern world,” said John Swaffer, advertising 
>manager at the Keim Lumber Company, a lumber mill in Charm, Ohio. 

The Amish move into the world of commerce has been more out of necessity than 
desire. Over the last 16 years, the Amish population in the United States — 
mostly in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana — has nearly doubled, to 230,000, 
and the decreasing availability and increasing cost of farmland has forced 
many of these agrarian families, especially the younger generation, to 
gravitate to small business as their main source of income. 

The businesses, which favor such Amish skills as furniture-making, quilting, 
construction work and cooking, have been remarkably successful. Despite a 
lack of even a high school education (the Amish leave school after the eighth 
grade), hundreds of Amish entrepreneurs have built profitable businesses 
based on the Amish values of high quality, integrity and hard work. A 2004 
Goshen College study reported that the failure rate of Amish businesses is 
less than 5 percent, compared with a national small-business default rate 
that is far higher. (According to a federal study, only two-thirds of all 
small-business start-ups survive the first two years and fewer than half make 
it to four years.) 

And these businesses have often partnered with non-Amish entrepreneurs to 
sell their wares to the public. 

Doug Winbigler of Amish Originals Furniture Company, a retailer in 
Westerville, Ohio, has witnessed the Amish transition since he opened in 
1992. “The change today is unbelievable,” said Mr. Winbigler, who is not 
Amish but buys his furniture from 75 Amish craftsmen in northern Ohio. “When 
we started, there was a hesitance because this was still a small industry and 
they wondered how we would treat them and represent them. They were concerned 
that they would be exploited. Today it has become more of a business and from 
a small-business angle, people are people. There are good and bad in every 
bunch.”

Many Amish have dealt with the collision of modern business technology and 
old world values by keeping their home and work lives completely separate. 
Though they still drive horses and buggies, remain off the power grid and 
wear simple, handmade clothing, some are using computers and power tools and 
talking on cellphones at their jobs. 

Mr. Swaffer, of Keim, said that several Amish employees walk around the mill 
with Bluetooth cellphones in their ears, but the phones are owned by Keim and 
the workers shut them off when they leave work. “You won’t likely see someone 
on a horse and buggy talking on a cellphone,” he added. 

Keim’s 120,000-square-foot showroom uses the latest computer technology and 
software. Given that the company’s general manager and most of its department 
managers are Amish, Keim had to go through a lengthy transition to get its 
workers to feel comfortable with the new technology. 

“As a company, Keim didn’t want to violate the Amish principles,” Mr. Swaffer 
said. “Our owner, Bill Keim, shares the same principles, and there was a 
desire not to offend anyone. So it took a couple of years of education to get 
everybody on board.”

Kenny Troyer, who is Old Order Amish, straddles both worlds. He is the 
co-founder and a board member of Amish Naturals, a start-up in Holmesville, 
Ohio, that makes pasta, granola and sauces from Amish recipes. His 
co-founder, David Skinner Sr., is not Amish. 

Mr. Troyer grew up on a farm without electricity, automobiles, telephones or 
television. His home is still without these modern conveniences but he is 
comfortable using a phone and computer at work. He does not drive but is 
willing to ride in a car. He acknowledges that some Amish churches grapple 
with collision of the old and the new and will not allow their members to use 
a phone or ride in a car, even at work. “Our community is a little more 
liberal,” Mr. Troyer said. 



In a culture that puts a premium on families staying at home and working 
together on the farm, young Amish are increasingly leaving to take jobs 
outside the home. In a community for which time stood still in the 19th 
century, such changes are significant.


>From Farming to Commerce “For the Amish community in North America, the move 
>from farming to small business is really a mini-industrial revolution,” said 
>Donald B. Kraybill, a professor and senior fellow at the Young Center for 
>Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. 
>“This is the most important and consequential change they’ve experienced 
>since they came to North America in the 18th century.”

Professor Kraybill, who co-wrote “Amish Enterprise: From Plow to Profits,” 
estimates that more than half of Amish households now earn their primary 
income from small business rather than farming and in some Amish settlements 
(there are more than 400 different settlements in North America), the 
percentage of households earning their income from nonfarming commerce is 
over 90 percent. 

“It is a dramatic change,” Professor Kraybill said. “It impacts the family 
and exposes them to the concept of competition and the need to use technology 
to be able to compete effectively.”

Professor Kraybill said he did not have data on how Amish businesses were 
faring in this current economy. He said he had heard that some had laid off 
employees and cut back hours but he knew of no business that had closed in 
the last six months. “I doubt if many will,” he said, because “the church 
usually comes in and takes over failing businesses before they fail.”

Like other religions, the Amish have various degrees of orthodoxy. There are 
many different affiliations of Amish groups, from the heavily traditional Old 
Order to the more progressive Amish Mennonites. Each church district has its 
own rules about everything from dress to use of technology. Some continue to 
shun extensive contact with the modern world while others are more flexible 
and pragmatic about embracing new technologies. Generally, each Amish 
community has a bishop who can decide, with the community’s input, whether or 
not to accept changes. 

Mr. Winbigler said he had learned in his 16 years in the Amish furniture 
business that doing business with the Amish is all about the relationships. 
Real friendships have formed, and Mr. Winbigler has been invited to Amish 
weddings, funerals and family gatherings. “We’ve seen the intimate side of 
the community and it has been wonderful. But as it becomes more of a 
business, you lose time for some of those special things.”

Inevitably, the shift toward business amounts to a tradeoff for the Amish. 
According to Professor Kraybill, the Amish are generally frugal, very astute 
businesspeople who can outbid non-Amish contractors because they are able to 
keep their costs low. Amish small-business owners do not pay Social Security 
taxes, for example, because of an exemption granted to them in 1965. The 
family cares for the elderly and the local church takes care of health care 
expenses. All this has enabled them to increase the wealth in their 
communities and sustain their preferred way of life.

But the Amish struggle with the impact on the family. “The family can’t work 
together the way they did on the farm,” Professor Kraybill said. “If there 
are three teenage sons, they may each be going off to a job somewhere else. 
The father may be going off to work as well.” 

And the more they start to accept new forms of technology, the more difficult 
it becomes to control outside influences. “They were able to keep the 
mainstream industrial revolution at bay for a century and a half,” Professor 
Kraybill said. “Now they can’t help but be more exposed to the outside world.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/business/smallbusiness/08sbiz.html?8dpc