Sept. 15, 2021

This paid piece is sponsored by Interstate Office Products.

For 50 years, Interstate Office Products has helped businesses of all sizes create optimal work environments.

Along the way, that has meant evolving from file cabinets and typewriters to work cafes, collaboration spaces and height-adjustable desks.

Walk inside Interstate Office Products’ own workplace today, and you’ll experience what the most forward-looking businesses are providing in office space.

“We now do a better job of walking the walk,” said Sheila Casiello, who co-owns the Sioux Falls-based office design and furnishings business with her brother, Gary Gaspar.

“We provide insight for customers on efficient and effective ways to work, and now our own office reflects how our most progressive clients are approaching their spaces.”

The next-generation space is a timely next chapter for Interstate Office Products, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

“The business itself has grown significantly from what it was about 20 years ago,” Gaspar said. “Our reach has really grown considerably to where we’re serving clients in a much broader radius, including national and even internationally.”

Building the business

Gaspar didn’t set out to join the business as his career path. Neither did Casiello. Their parents, Ken and LaVonne, didn’t exactly set out to be business owners  either.

But in 1971, Ken’s former co-workers in an office equipment business, Lyle Christensen and Garry Scott, decided to branch off and start their own business.

Interstate Office Products – named because it served the tri-state area – opened at 2308 E. 10th St., and Ken, who had worked his way up to office manager, was offered the chance to partner with his colleagues in their new venture.

“I was 6 at the time, so I just remember my parents working hard, like crazy, and money was tight,” Gaspar said. “I remember sweeping floors on a Saturday for an ice cream cone.”

The business grew along with Sioux Falls, with clients that included Citibank, both major health systems and Western Surety.

Christensen retired in 1981, and Scott followed in 1995.

That was around the time when Gaspar and Casiello returned to the business.

Gaspar and his wife, Theresa, were working in corporate finance management jobs in the Twin Cities, and “we never even considered moving back to South Dakota and certainly never planned on getting back in the business. It just wasn’t on my radar,” he said.

After his father asked twice, his wife said they should consider it.

“She grew up in Iowa, and I grew up here, and she was not that keen on the thought of putting our kids into school in a massive city. The thought of raising kids in a smaller community was better,” Gaspar said.

“All I could think of was, wow, I’m jumping out of a building without a parachute. It felt like as big of a risk to me as it did to my parents when they started the company. Once you exit corporate America, it’s hard to get back on the train. You better make it work because you’re probably not going back.”

For Casiello, who first worked at Interstate at age 15 doing office work and continued through college, a move home from Florida brought her back into the business, where she helped oversee customer service and worked in furniture purchasing.

“When Gary was coming back, at that point I knew I wanted to work here,” she said.

About that same time, Kristi Christensen was Interstate’s only designer. She’s now executive vice president of sales and design; and together, the owners and Christensen form the company’s leadership team.

“Thank God, Kristi stayed and now has grown an outstanding team,” Gaspar said. It was a transition period, so we had some additional retirements, and we realized we had a lot to figure out.”

He and Casiello began buying shares in the company after Scott retired in 1995 and had acquired nearly one-third of it by the time their father retired in 2000. Gaspar became CEO; Casiello became president.

They began evolving the business for the future.

“The company had been working within a 30-mile radius of Sioux Falls,” Casiello said. “They had yet to even touch USD or SDSU, so that became an expansion point, and today we have grown with clients to serve offices on both coasts and Canada.”

The second generation also “bought the first truck – previously they had used a third-party delivery service – leased the first warehouse and built our first warehouse in 2007,” Gaspar continued. “We now have several, totaling over 100,000 square feet of space, including our downtown buildings.”

As the business grew, Theresa Gaspar’s role expanded from a part-time accountant to chief financial officer.

“She’s helped us a ton on the financial and management side over the years,” Gaspar said. “The financial house was always totally in order.”

Casiello now oversees operations, including customer service, shipping, installation, order management, IT and purchasing, as well as Interstate’s growing office supply and branded-products business, which offers essentially unlimited ways to customize tens of thousands of office and promotional items.

The overall Interstate Office Products team now has grown to more than 40, from about 15 people in the mid-’90s.

In 2017, Gary and Theresa’s son, James, joined the business. He, too, grew up working there while in high school and continued helping as an installer through college.

“I’ve had an opportunity to work in pretty much every area, starting with accounting and then HR, and I’ve been heavily involved in operations,” he said. “I just envision myself continuing to grow here.”

Since its founding, Interstate Office Products has been a Steelcase dealer, representing the industry’s leading manufacturer of furniture for offices, hospitals and classrooms.

“Steelcase products are inspired by innovative research in workspace design,” Gaspar said. “It’s a relationship we’ve been honored to evolve over five decades.”

Ten years ago, Steelcase implemented the Premier Partners program, a status awarded based on achieving market leadership, positively impacting the community, high customer-satisfaction scores, co-branding with Steelcase and financial fitness.

In naming Interstate a 2020 Premier Partners dealer, Steelcase wrote:

“While all Steelcase dealers in the United States and Canada meet high standards for quality and performance, some stand out as extraordinary partners. Those dealers engage with Steelcase, their customers, influencers and community to deliver exceptional value as evidenced by their growth and fitness this year. This is Interstate’s 10th consecutive year as a Premier Partner dealer. Interstate has won the award every year since its inception, one of only two dealers in North America to accomplish this feat. We are so proud of our team and their commitment to passionately support each other, our customers and our community.”

Inside the office

Interstate Office Products gradually has expanded its 35,000-square-foot location at 228 S. Main Ave. since 1978, including a major project to restore the building’s facade in 2013 and a window replacement on the alley-facing side a year later that brightened up the space.

“But we’d never done a cohesive overhaul of the inside,” Christensen said. “It’s a showroom as well as an office, so we were always painting or replacing flooring, but we never took a holistic look at it. This flipped it upside down, so we started over with almost everything.”

The goal was to improve the experience both for customers and employees.

“We had grown so much we needed to start fresh and focus on how we use the space,” Christensen said. “That was the driver for why we did as much as we did.”

Take a look at some of the “before and after” images of Interstate’s own office redesign:

 

“We created spaces that balance privacy and collaboration, and support both modes of work,” Gaspar said.

“We offer choice and control for employees over their space, privacy and the ability to move to different spaces within the office depending on the type of work they’re doing and have it supported by technology and power.”

While there are pieces in the office that serve the purpose of a showroom, too, “our spaces are functional,” James Gaspar added. “They’re not just there for show. There’s always access to power or a table, so you can work there effectively.”

This is what it looks like for an office to “walk the walk,” the team added.

These spaces are meant to show modern office design, intentionally laid out to meet employees’ evolving needs.

“It was designed around flexibility,” Gaspar said. “The architecture, furniture and technology are integrated in a way that can be reconfigured. We replaced some existing offices with movable walls, with a high aesthetic and high acoustical properties.”

Technology supports both in-person and remote meetings through an efficient videoconference setup.

“This whole idea of blending physical and digital is where a lot of people are gravitating,” Gaspar said. “So you can have some interactions that are remote or hybrid because not every meeting needs to be in person.”

But when clients come into the space, reaction to the new design “has been super positive,” Christensen said. “It’s a phenomenal resource for sales and design, but even for our internal staff, it feels more professional, it feels brighter and more modern, and they’re proud to show it to others.”

Staff members enjoy a true “work cafe” as a place to step away from their desks, “so it’s a space not just for lunch or breaks but a true all-day space,” Gaspar said.

The office also reflects the company’s culture.

“It’s a culture of excellence,” Gaspar said. “No one is willing to do anything halfway.”

Gaspar is known for a saying – “Life is not that hard if you do what you’re supposed to do” – his sister said.

He nods and half-laughs when she brings it up.

“It’s true,” he agreed. “You have a job to do, and that job may change moment to moment, but the job to do is whatever needs to be done to make sure you take care of the customer.”

The family business encompasses the entire team as family, Casiello added.

“Everyone is on the same team and will do what is needed to take care of the customer,” she said. “The customer is priority, making sure they are satisfied, happy and that we have gone beyond their expectations.”

It’s also a culture that’s “open to opportunities,” Christensen added. “It’s always been about having a vision of what could be and where we could take it.”

As the generation to take the business into the next 50 years, James Gaspar said his role is to build on what has been achieved before him.

“I’ve had a ton of learning opportunities over the last several years to grow in the business and understand what’s going on, as well as to grow in the community and continue to brand Interstate Office Products as a leader in what we do,” he said.

“What they’ve done to build over the last 25 years just set Interstate Office Products up for success in the future. The talent we have, the leaders and those in all roles have really set us up for success.”

Would you like to tour the newly redesigned Interstate Office Products for yourself? We promise you’ll leave inspired to update your own space! Call 605-339-0330 or visit i-o-p.com.