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"Updates from the Workshop" Newsletter

Rob Teeter, owner of Teeter's Telescopes, and the company's flag ship telescope, a 20" F/3.5 TT/Sub4, captured in twilight at the 2013 Black Forest Star Party in PA. This beautiful sunset yielded clearing conditions and dark skies accentuating a prosperous year.


2013 - A Resounding Success!

Anniversaries, Milestones, Career Changes and More All Mark an Incredible Year

19 January 2014 - We'll start off this newsletter with a lyric from rock band Semisonic's 1999 hit, Closing Time; "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."  This is an apt quote based upon a very eventful year for us at Teeter's Telescopes, particularly because 2013 officially marked the move of Teeter's Telescopes to a full time endeavor.   Other notable happenings included celebrating our 11th anniversary as a company, celebrating our 1st anniversary of operation in our new commercial location, completing and shipping the 100th Teeter's Telescope, unveiling our brand new website, and other incredible noteworthy achievements.  This newsletter isn't intended to "toot our own horn," rather its purpose is to give everybody subscribed an idea of how the business is progressing, expanding and gearing up for the future.  We know many of you reading this are friends, family, customers [who have ultimately become friends], and potential future customers; all of whom are genuinely interested in following Teeter's Telescopes.

Company Anniversary - Teeter's Telescopes first opened its doors in February 2002 when I was just a freshman at my local community college.  I started my college career several months earlier at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA, but quickly realized that while the campus was beautiful and a degree from such a well regarded institution would be invaluable, I had underestimated how home sick I would be.  Couple that with a bum roommate, and my one semester there was a nightmare.   Transferring back home and into the local community college proved to be a defining moment in my life.  I was able to continue a degree in the field of Geology/Environment that I was pursuing, keeping on track for an eventual transfer into Rutgers University to complete my 4 year degree, and still have enough extra time outside of class to dream up a little business called "Teeter's Telescopes", originally run out of my parent's garage.  Here we are essentially 12 years later having grown the business immensely, originally taking only 2 or 3 orders per year in the very beginning to now taking upwards of 35 orders annually.  For those interested in delving deeper into the history of my involvement with astronomy and the history of Teeter's Telescopes, please see the Punk Astronomy interview conducted with me in 2010.

Commercial Location Anniversary - A major factor for allowing us to grow the business so much recently was our move into a new larger commercial/light industrial location.  I'll apologize in advance for this hokey commentary but thanks to "the stars aligning for us" we were able to find and ultimately occupy the current Teeter's Telescopes location in July of 2012.   A family friend, who owns a business and had extra space in their building made the space available to us on a mutually agreed upon lease that couldn't be passed up.   This move gave us a five-fold increase in square footage, space needed to increase production and get our operations set up in a more efficient manner.  July 2013 marked one year for us in the space and we couldn't be happier with the move!  We look forward to many more anniversaries there.  Shortly after moving in, we conducted a tour of our new facility which we recorded and have made available here through YouTube.
 
Full Time Endeavor - For most people, June 21 is recognized as the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.  For me, June 21, 2013, marked my last day at my "non-astro-related day-job" as many of you have heard me refer to it over the years.  To give you a little background, from 2006 to 2010 I worked full time with a medium sized environmental consulting and engineering company, PMK Group (eventually purchased and taken over by Birdsall Services Group (BSG)), here in New Jersey.  I worked in the company's ERCP group (environmental regulatory compliance and permitting) doing such arcane tasks as permit completions and submissions for clients with air, drinking water, waste water and solid waste concerns.  I also completed more interesting tasks such as environmental audits with regard to underground storage tanks, spill prevention, storm water regulations, etc.  I worked there 40 hours per week for those 5 years and then would come home and work on telescopes at night and on the weekends in our garage.  I made it work and we put out many great telescopes during that time, but I had zero free time and was running myself ragged.  The Summer of 2010 proved to be a growth spurt for Teeter's Telescopes, taking more orders than ever before. In contrast, work at BSG had begun to decline. 

I saw the writing on the wall and in the Fall of 2010 I approached my manager and asked to go part-time so I could spend more time growing Teeter's Telescopes.  Needless to say, he was surprised but supportive of my career move. I was still obligated to give BSG at least 25 hours per week but I could now slide all my time at night and on the weekends working on telescopes to time during normal working hours. What a relief! This worked quite well until the Fall of 2012 when the work at BSG had declined even further and the telescope work continued to increase.  I approached my manager again to request even fewer hours and was approved to reduce them to at least 16 per week.  This was yet another defining moment for me and Teeter's Telescopes as it allowed us to increase our capacity and set us up for what would come several months later.  

In the Spring of 2013, BSG became embroiled in a scandal involving illegal political campaign contributions and money laundering in order to "buy" public contracts; the company was investigated and ultimately indicted by the State Attorney General.  Clients began leaving in droves, entire divisions were let go and the company was a shell of itself by May, 2013.  Later that month, what remained of the company was sold, the office I worked in was closed, my group was discontinued and a token offer of employment to continue with the new company was offered to me, otherwise June 21 would be my final day.  

I weighed my options but took what had happened to BSG as a sign it was time to move on.  I learned much in my time with PMK/BSG and I feel it allowed me to grow as a professional, and some small part of me was sad to see it end.  But with that door closing, another was opening for full time employment with Teeter's Telescopes.  Was I nervous? Yes! Here I was putting all of my faith into my little company, Teeter's Telescopes, that had always been part time and was now expecting it to provide me 40+ hours of work per week and allow me to put food on the table.  Well, here we are several months removed from that decision and Teeter's Telescopes is going strong.  We have an incredibly deep queue of work stretching out into the Summer of 2014, a great customer base and following, and a reputation that keeps us on most potential customers' short lists.  For all of that we are extremely grateful.   Am I still nervous?  What small business owner isn't?  We continue to work hard here, but now with full focus on Teeter's Telescopes.
 
Milestones - The 100th Teeter's Telescope was completed and shipped in July 2013!  Okay, okay, 100 may not be a huge number, especially not for our competition like the Big O who works on an assembly line type production, but remember that each of these 100 telescopes we've manufactured since 2002 has been custom built to each customer's specifications.  That's a lot of customizations, a lot of time hashing out details, and many hours involved in design, construction and field testing.  These are tasks that not all of our competition does.  Plus, that was all done through Teeter's Telescopes on a part time basis.  TT100, an 18" F/4.5 TT/Classic contracted by a customer in TX, represented the completion of our first major goal.  Somewhere along the line, whether it was 2003 or 2004, I had set my mind to completing 100 telescopes in 10 years.   That was a lofty goal when the company was only producing 5 - 7 telescopes per year.  But I knew, if we stuck it out and buckled down, I could make it happen.  Granted, it took until our 11th year to deliver TT100, but the order was taken at the end of the 10th year.  So it counts!   :-)    Onward to 500!

New Products - 2013 marked the official announcements of two new product lines coming to Teeter's Telescopes, the TT/Journey and TT/Stark.  The Journey is our answer to the market's desire for a compact "Travel Scope" with moderate aperture.  At 10" F/5, this scope packs enough aperture and focal length to be well suited for both planetary/lunar and deep sky observing.   When taking into account such a scope will most likely be traveling to dark, exotic, locations 10" of aperture should prove to keep most observers occupied while on travel.  

The Stark is our answer to the market's desire for quality and ease of use but at a lower price point.   This is a bare-bones version of our traditional Truss-Dobsonians priced lower and also priced a la carte so you can add certain components but leave off others.   Both product lines have not been officially released as of yet, as prototype telescopes from each are still under construction.   We hope to be able to provide more details, pricing and availability in the near future.
 
New Website - A large part of why this newsletter, originally billed as bi-weekly, has been missing in action since last Summer is because all of our computer time was being funneled toward completing our brand new, totally overhauled, Teeter's Telescopes website.   The previous version of the site worked well for us over the last 4 years or so that we used it.  However, since the web is our main portal for customers to find us, we felt that while the old version worked it certainly did not do our products and company justice.  Plus, it was a dated 1990's style template in desperate need of being modernized.  We spent a lot of time looking at other templates until the one we selected jumped out at us.   We began the process in August 2013 of porting all of our text and pictures over to the new template.  We spent a lot of time rewriting elements, going more in depth for others, adding new pages, consolidating information, and adding more graphics.  We have totally fallen in love with the new website and we believe it now better represents us and shows our products as they deserve to be shown.  We hope you agree!   Please visit the new Teeter's Telescopes website.

What a year it was! 2013 certainly ranks among the best Teeter's Telescopes has ever had.  We want to thank all of our customers who placed orders and/or received their telescopes in 2013, your business is appreciated and is why we can continue to do what we do.  Much of the profit we clear on our telescope builds is rolled right back into the company, helping us to continually improve our facilities, equipment, services and provide a superior product to the amateur astronomy market.  Thank you!

Until next time - Clear, dark, skies!

Teeter's Telescopes, LLC.

Rob Teeter (in red shirt) getting ready to show members of the public some deep sky objects through the Teeter's Telescopes flag ship 20" F/3.5 TT/Sub4 at the 2013 Summer Star Party, hosted by the Rockland (NY) Astronomy Club. Outstanding conditions here and at several other large star parties made for a successful observing season.
Is your astronomy club, star party or other group in search of a presenter?  

Rob Teeter, owner of Teeter's Telescopes, can bring his engaging personality and witty sense of humor to educate and entertain at your next club meeting or star party. Rob has literally traveled the country presenting his most popular programs including, "Teeter and his Telescopes: 120 Telescopes and 1000 Stories", a humorous yet educational commentary on the craziest customers and most unique custom projects from over 10 years in operation; and, "Imitation to Innovation: The Evolution of the Commercial Dobsonian", a blending of a historical recount of where the commercial Dobsonian telescope began with a crash course on the latest and greatest gadgets, gizmos and add-ons on the market.  Rest assured, neither program is an infomercial for Teeter's Telescopes! Please inquire with Rob for other topics, travel schedule, availability and pricing. Thank you for your consideration!
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