I was the first employee of the Casablanca Fan Company which had its beginnings in 1973, in fact my first day there was 38 years ago today. I went independent with my portion of the company in January of 1984. However, my dream to do that had begun 3 years earlier (I had many obstacles to overcome).
One of the first things I did was come up with a company name. I had done some projects for Disneyland, in particular their design department which is called Disney Imagineering the combination of imagine and engineering. I had always liked the way they had done that so I came up with Fanimation a combination of fan and animation. I printed out the name in a very large font on a card about 2” high and 8″ wide. I kept it in the pencil drawer of desk so every time I opened my desk drawer I was reminded of my goal.
We started out as Fanimation Design and Manufacturing, Inc. That was a lot of name to say and to put on forms and such so several years ago I shortened it to Fanimation, Inc., you can thank me later.
That’s whole truth and nothing but…
Tom Frampton
Founder & CEO
