Glass for houses: that's what Andrew Pearson wants to design, if only the economy doesn't hurl another stone.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: PICTURE THIS

Sue and Hal Brownfield's calling was crystal clear. "Hal liked product design and was really good at it," she says. He designed his first piece--a spiraling, stacked-glass lamp table--loaded it in the trunk of his car, went to National Bank of Detroit and got a loan. So began the couple's sometimes-bumpy road from working in the auto industry to owning Andrew Pearson Industries Inc., a Mount Airy company that makes architectural and decorative glasswork.

They started Andrew Pearson--his middle and his mother's maiden names--in Troy, Mich., in 1989 to make glass furniture. Both had been engineers with Detroit-based General Motors Corp. She had degrees in industrial engineering from the University of Michigan, and he had one in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Military Academy. After graduating from West Point and serving three years in the Army, he worked for Ford Motor Co. before joining GM, where his design job entailed shaping glass.

In 1994, tired of breakage from shipments packed next to auto parts, they moved the company to North Carolina to be near the nation's largest wholesale furniture market in High Point. But the 70,000-square-foot plant they built doesn't manufacture glass. That comes from Toledo, Ohio-based Pilkington North America Inc.'s plant in Laurinburg and Pittsburgh-based PPG Industries Inc. It arrives in rectangles about 81/2 feet by more than 10 feet that is up to three-quarters of an inch thick. From them, workers create custom products for customers. Most end up east of the Mississippi--shipping heavy glass is expensive--such as in New York City office buildings. Simple glass can remain simple--cut-to-order tabletops--but some items take on new dimensions and textures. Company logos...