LI magnet maker's success (and love) story

When Jeff met Judi a decade ago, each was single. He was divorced, she was widowed. They met on the popular website JDate, and corresponded two months before arranging a get-together.

Just before the first meeting, Jeff Vogel, now 70, made a request: "I said, 'We've been corresponding for two months. No matter what happens, let's give each other a hug, even if we're disappointed."

"No," said Judi, also 70, "I said that."

Whoever said it, they both agreed the meeting went well. They married, and that marriage turned into a business in 2005 - WTBI Inc., for What's the Big Idea Inc., a Huntington Station-based manufacturer of those magnets people hang on refrigerators, doors and auto dashboards.

Now when the Vogels hug, there is a reason other than love: WTBI has become a $1 million-a-year business and, according to their research, the largest maker of such magnets in the U.S. WTBI stocks 29,000 U.S., Canadian and Caribbean souvenir images that are manufactured into more than 140 different products and sold to wholesalers and distributors.

"We run mean and lean," said Jeff Vogel, WTBI's president. (Judi is vice president.) Souvenirs are made only after an order is received, so there's never excess product lying around. Thousands of the items can be made in a day on the company's 13 machines, said Millie Ardito, the company's head of production. "We're like a bakery here," Ardito said. "We make everything fresh."

Jeff was a database designer and Judi worked in the pharmaceutical industry when they met. She traveled constantly. Jeff would drive her to the airport on a Monday and pick her up on a Friday. After they married, Jeff said, "This is no way [to begin] a new marriage." They soon bought an old magnet-making machine and worked on designs. They later won contracts to supply the items to gift shops along the New York State Thruway. They moved out of a small space on Broadway in Huntington, to 3,600 square feet in Huntington Station. The company employs 14 people full-time, and is expanding. Retirement is not even a thought.

"We're growing," Judi said.