Home-based businessman is his own lone employee.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: SMALL biz

MICHAEL SCHMIDLEN AND I FIRST TALKED ABOUT three years ago after I received his entry for our annual Top 250 Private Companies ranking. His firm, Advanced Datacomm Solutions, reported revenues of more than $3 million. Yet it listed only one employee.

I thought this might have been a mistake, so I called him. "No, that's correct," Schmidlen told me. "It's just me working out of my house."

That's been the arrangement for the better part of 18 years. Advanced Datacomm Solutions is a reseller of voice and data communications products and services. Schmidlen's story seems especially relevant today, with so many professionals - many in their 50s when they should be in their peak earning years--finding themselves out of work and pondering the possibility of going into business for themselves.

"Working from home is a blessing and a curse," says the 52-year-old Castle Pines resident. He describes his home office as "kind of like a siren calling you to the rocks. I've literally woken up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep and come down and worked for a while.

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"But I would not change the existence that I've lived for the better part of the last 18 years for anything. I don't know if it would even be possible for me to go to work for somebody."

What's also notable about Schmidlen is that, except for one semester of college, his formal education ended with high school. "I've taken a couple classes during the ensuing 30 years," he says, "but for the most part it's been OJT (on-the-job training)."

The soaring cost of higher education and debt incurred by students or their families has led some financial commentators to question whether a college degree is worth it. Schmidlen isn't one of them.

His oldest daughter is a senior at Northern Arizona University, majoring in hospitality/resort manage ment PR and marketing. Another daughter is a junior in high school.

By contrast Schmidlen started out at 19 working for GE, driving a forklift and unloading railcars in Idaho Falls, Idaho, before getting a chance at inside sales and being transferred to Denver.

"I will tell you I've had frustrations over the years because I didn't have a college degree," says Schmidlen, who was named one of this magazine's "25 Most Powerful Salespeople" in our January issue. "When I worked for GE it took me longer to get a sales job because I didn't have a degree. So I had a chip on my shoulder. I was the top salesman in the Denver...