Spartan Profiles: Julie Aigner-Clark
BABY EINSTEIN
Is there a “Mozart effect,” where babies and toddlers exposed to classical music presumably grow up smarter? Regardless, a huge market has grown for multimedia material for babies and toddlers, 80 percent of it generated by The Baby Einstein Company in Lone Tree, CO. The company was created by Julie Aigner-Clark, ’88, an English teacher who wanted to produce something for her own child, Aspen, back in 1997.
Today Aspen, 7, and sibling Sierra, 4, are home-schooled in suburban Denver and see the world in their parents’ Citation jet plane—something Julie and husband Bill were able to buy on a time-share basis after selling the company to Disney in November 2001. “This was never about making your baby into Einstein or Mozart or Beethoven,” says Clark. “It’s about exposing them to positive things like classical music, poetry, art and science, and to do so in a stimulating and entertaining way.” Julie began with a puppet.
She used it to get Aspen to smile while Bill video-taped. After adding some music, like Rossini’s William Tell Overture, she had an enriching product for babies that sold $100,000 the first year via a single retailer (The Right Start). “Babies loved it, and babies don’t lie,” says Julie. “They either smile or cry, and they smiled.”
Within four years sales topped $18 million—raising the interest of Disney. “I was an English major so I had no clue about the business end,” says Julie. “My husband was really helpful. We learned more than you could getting an MBA degree.”
A native of Grosse Pointe, Julie chose MSU because of its size and beauty. “I loved MSU,” she says, recalling professor Arthur Athanason as one brilliant mind that influenced her thinking. She taught in several states, winding up in Colorado. “Right now I have control over my children’s lives, so why not take advantage of it and fill it with positive things?” she says. “I’m not a scientist. I base everything I do from the standpoint of being a parent who wants the best for her children.”
