By Mike McKenna
You may not realize it, but just about everywhere you go around here you see and probably appreciate their work.
For 15 years now, Windy City Arts has been producing high-quality signs of all kinds for the Wood River Valley—from stop signs and address markers to vehicle wraps, wall murals and impressive residence signs like the new ones welcoming people to Elkhorn and Starweather.
“People come in with a dream about what they want and we work with them to turn it into a reality,” Linda Larsen said. “We really thrive on making people happy.”
Linda and her husband and business partner, Troy, have been happily married for nearly three decades. They didn’t necessarily set out to raise their family in Sun Valley or be in the sign business, but it’s where fate took them and they couldn’t be happier about it. After originally coming up from Utah to visit friends, they decided to take a chance and move here.
“We came here with three months’ rent and a hope,” Linda said, explaining that shortly after arriving in the Wood River Valley, they were offered the opportunity to buy the newly created Windy City Arts. With Troy’s graphic design and Linda’s business backgrounds, it seemed like a good decision. A decade and a half later, they’re thrilled with how it’s all worked out.
“We love it here. It’s the perfect place and we really enjoy being a part of this community,” Troy said about a family business that employs five full- and two part-time employees, including their daughter, Julia, and son, Curtis.
Windy City Arts is located next to Sun Valley Auto Club in the Hailey Business Park. It’s their ideal—and third—location and allows them to house everything from their office needs, to design, printer and manufacturing spaces, and includes a bay for vehicles and an employee-housing unit.
“The whole process is done here in Hailey,” Troy said. “We’re truly local.”
Being able to handle the entire process in one place, from idea to design to creation, is one of the reasons Windy City Arts has been so successful. The other big reason they’ve been able to thrive while they’ve watched lots of other sign companies come and go over the years is because of their dedication to creating great relationships with their clients and their hardworking and talented staff.
“We invest in our clients,” Troy said. “We want to help them create things that are good for them and our community. We may not always be the cheapest, but we provide quality service and products for a good value.”
Creating happiness is at the core of what Windy City Arts is all about. You may not realize it, but their work has undoubtedly helped make all of us in the Wood River Valley happier, too—whether they’ve helped make our businesses more successful or they simply helped us find our way.
Mike McKenna is the executive director of The Chamber – Hailey & The Wood River Valley. He can be reached at Mike@ValleyChamber.org or by calling (208) 788-3484.