Unlikely meditation outpost finds some business in Iowa
VEDIC CITY, Iowa -- When Eric Schwartz decided to move his . nancial services business from Silver Spring, Md., to southeastern Iowa so he could join other practitioners of Transcendental Meditation in 1992, he worried that clients and colleagues might think he was a little crazy.
"Some people think TM is some kind of cult or devil worship," he said. "I thought it might be negative for my business, that customers would freak out."
Things turned out differently.
With much lower overhead, he found pro.ts for Cambridge Investment Research rising. He went from a gross revenue of about $500,000 a year around Washington, D.C., to more than $50 million in 2002 in Iowa. Investment Advisor named him broker- dealer of the year in 2003.
He credits Transcendental Meditation, which he began practicing at Amherst College in 1971, for fueling his success.
"Even if investors or customers aren't interested in TM, they are attracted to the fact that I moved here to do this, that I'm concerned about more than just making money or having an ocean view," said Schwartz, who is considering changing his title from chief executive to chief spiritual of.cer.
"That's the kind of business they want to be involved with." Many other people in Vedic City and neighboring Fair.eld feel the same way. The community, founded by followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Beatles' meditation guru, has become an entrepreneurial mecca of the Midwest.
Followers headed toward Fair.eld after the Maharishi University of Management was established in 1974, and Vedic City, just outside the limits of Fair.eld, was incorporated in 2001. It was the .rst new Iowa city to be incorporated since 1982.
Residents estimate that onefourth of the 10,000 people in Fair.eld and Vedic City practice Transcendal Meditation.
Other successful businesses run by TM devotees include MarathonFoto, which bills itself as the largest event photography company in the country; Creative Edge Master Shop, which manufactures intricate .oor and wall murals out of marble and granite for Disney, the Chicago Bulls and other clients; and the Raj Ayurveda Health Center, a spa that draws visitors paying hundreds of dollars a day.
City of.cials say that more than $200 million in venture capital has been invested in Fair.eld and Vedic City companies in 13 years.
"For a small town in the Midwest to have so many successful businesses is really unbelievable," said Rashi Glazer, of the Center for Marketing and Technology at the University of California at Berkeley, who summers in Fair.eld. "It means something's going on here."
Vedic is a Sanskrit word meaning "totality of knowledge." Residents live in homes designed with entrances facing east and rooms oriented to correspond with the cycles of the sun and moon.
Practitioners of TM meditate for 20 minutes, twice a day.
