Success Stories
Tenacity and Candles
The owner of the Rose District’s Simplicity is a tireless supporter of Broken Arrow and promoter of the merchants located in the main street corridor. Lynn Palmer watched as Broken Arrow’s Rose District was starting to bloom in 2013 and she wanted to be a part of it. Palmer and business partner Stan Synar purchased the vacant credit union across from The Museum Broken Arrow. Synar is a commercial broker while Palmer is a general contractor. Once the credit union was purchased and the property around it, too, the block has suddenly taken on a new life. The area Palmer and Synar developed the city block at 309 S. Main Street housing such retailer as Fleet Feet, The Girl Can Cook, the Succulent Shop, and Rocket Fizz.
Simplicity opened in 2016 and is well planned out and decorated in an eclectic, inviting, old-fashioned manner. “I wanted to try something different,” Palmer said. “I had this space left. I think we needed something like this down Main Street. I bit the bullet and here I am.”
She is good at biting the bullet. During the recent, COVID19 crisis, Lynn pivoted her business to making and selling hand sanitizer for businesses that could not find it. “This kept the lights on, and paid the bills for 9 weeks,” according to Palmer.
Visitors to Simplicity can find home décor, barware, and an array of gifts ideas to purchase. However, the passionate stories about the Rose district founding and progress are free upon every visit.
Passion, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
Headquartered in Broken Arrow, Zeeco is a global leader in the design, engineering, and manufacturing of next-generation combustion equipment and advanced environmental systems. In 2019, Zeeco celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Zeeco operates more than 20 locations globally, the largest product research and test facility on earth, four strategically located manufacturing facilities, more than 1,300 employees and agents, and thousands of installations on virtually every continent.
CEO Darton Zink says being private and family-owned are part of what makes Zeeco the global powerhouse it is today because it “allows us to focus our thinking in a very long-term way. It also allows us to look at our colleagues and the people working in the company in a long-term way, and while we may not be a small business, the business still has a very family-oriented feeling.”
No matter where Zeeco winds up, the heart of the company is in one place: Broken Arrow. The 250-acre Zeeco campus was purchased in the 1970s by Zink’s father, who put a simple ad in the Wall Street Journal – “Wanted: Cheap land near Tulsa.”
“The cool thing about our business is that we have the opportunity and ability to solve the world’s toughest combustion problems from Broken Arrow,” Zink says. “We solve problems not only in the United States and in Oklahoma, but around the world.”
