History

Baker Street Office Furnishings, formerly known as Tri R Office services, opened its doors in September 1987 in a little obscure warehouse on Bluffton Road. From the beginning Mike Millikan had a simple plan. He wanted his future clients to have an outlet to either “Refurbish”, “Refinish” or “Recycle” their existing office furniture. Hence the name Tri R. There was no real outlet for that type of service at the time. Business owners who wanted a different look to their offices would typically buy new and throw the old in the landfill.

Tri R would begin to change the way people looked at office furniture buying. Now if a client was changing their office environment, Tri R could help them cut costs dramatically by reusing and /or altering what they currently have. Mike and his team would pick up files, desks, panels and cabinets and bring them back to his shop for the transformation process. This “process” could be as simple as electrostatically painting a cabinet or be more extensive like completely refurbishing an office panel. This would be the type of service Fort Wayne and the surrounding area was waiting for.

As time went on and Mike’s business grew, so did his services. With the inception of the growth, Mike’s wife, MaryJane, joined the business in 1997. He also added a designer that would help his clients a great deal in space planning their office more effectively. At that time Mike was handling all the sales and installations himself. In 1998, Greg Lee started as an outside sales representative. His mission was simple; go out and talk to business owners, facilities managers and CFO’s and tell them about a more cost effective way of furniture buying.

We continued to evolve as a company. We continually looked for ways to provide the best value for our clients’ dollar. In 2001, we moved to our current location on Baker Street. This is a great location for us. It provides us ample space to do the things we need to do. It allows us proper warehousing and a showroom, which we had never had before. We are able now to showcase all the different products and services we provide; new, refurbished and used.

In 2007, Mike and MaryJane, were looking to possibly retire. They had worked long and hard to build their business and wanted to sit back and enjoy life. Greg, who had been there since 1998 and his wife Kelli, bought the business in January, 2008.