Columbia, Mo., Office Supply Owner Keeps Pace with Changes.

Byline: Ashley Ernst

Jun. 13--When Greg Wolff's father fired him, it was with the gentle but firm advice -- "Son, you need to be in sales."

So Wolff, recognizing that he wasn't cut out to be an accountant, left his father's St. Louis CPA firm and landed a sales job with an office supply company. By 1987, he had opened his own shop in Columbia called Marathon Office Interiors.

During those early years, Marathon was affiliated with Xerox, and "fax" was the buzzword of the day. Fax machines were going to connect the world, and a new one cost from $4,000 to $5,000.

Times have changed, and the owner and president of Marathon has changed with them.

Today, Wolff still has an old dinosaur of a word processor as part of a display, but gone are the Xerox fax machines, copiers and typewriters. Instead, the building on Paris Road is filled to the brim with desks, chairs and workstations designed to fit every employee and every business imaginable.

The furniture is movable, adjustable. It fits not only every office need, it fits the new buzzword of the day -- ergonomics.

"Back in the early '90s, no one knew what …