Drew and Debbi Brand met at Broad Ripple High School as students where they later graduated. Drew recently returned to the area as owner and manager of Pak Mail, located at 2113 Broad Ripple Avenue. Debbi manages their Geist Center store at 11715 Fox Road, Suite 400 on the northeast side of Indianapolis.

He described how they moved into their new endeavor. "In January of 2004, Debbi and I decided to look at buying a business. We looked at several things. In the spring of that year, we saw an advertisement for an independent store at Geist. We bought it and put in the Pak Mail franchise. We piggybacked the marketing support and the national contracts with shippers like United Parcel Service and Federal Express. We opened the business in October of 2004 and worked in the store for about nine months. The Clearwater store became available at that time, which we purchased and operated for five years," Brand explained. Kite Development began to redevelop the area as Brand saw a unique opportunity to return to a familiar place. "We moved to the Broad Ripple Avenue location over the Labor Day weekend," he added. Drew joins fellow BRHS alumni, Rosevelt and Tiffany Colvin on Broad Ripple Avenue, who own and operate the UPS store and SweeTies dessert shop, respectively.

The move has proven to be a successful one. "After we left the Clearwater area, I gave Pak Mail corporate four different zip codes for a store and demographic-wise, this store (in Broad Ripple) came back the strongest. Business has been very good. Our previous customers are finding us and our visibility from the street is 100 times better than the previous location. We are much closer to the street. People are finding us daily and we are receiving customers from the former Pak Mail store (2118 Broad Ripple Avenue) across the street," he said.

"Both Debbi and I graduated from Broad Ripple High School. We knew of each other there (they didn't date one another), but got married 20 years after high school. She was a cheerleader there," Brand recalled.

According to BRHS' Riparian yearbook, Debbi also sang in A Cappella Choir that performed at the Twelfth Night Service at Broad Ripple Park and participated at the BRHS Spring Festival. She was also a member of the Junior Historical Society that collected vintage Broad Ripple area photos. JHS took a weekend excursion to St. Louis on the Huckleberry Finn, a 19th century Mississippi sternwheeler. Drew and Debbi are both from Indianapolis.

After graduation, Drew worked in the auto business for almost 20 years in several different cities. Debbi worked in the health care industry many years at the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) in Bethesda, Maryland. It was after they reacquainted, got married and eventually returned to the Circle City that they changed careers, becoming partners in life and later in business.

Pak Mail delivers a variety of items. "We've shipped grandfather clocks, cars, a 600-pound rock to California and half a million dollars worth of C. W. Mundy paintings to Florida. That's what sets us apart from the other packing and shipping stores. We have some office supplies; we do copies, faxes, have a notary service and some mail boxes. We can pack items for people and do consulting," Brand explained. They can also help customers track the items they ship.

"After the new year, we will be focusing on becoming the packing and shipping source for other business close by, which will allow them to outsource a portion of their business that typically does not make a profit," he mentioned.

Pak Mail's Broad Ripple store is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Packing and shipping inquiries can be answered by calling 255-7447 (SHIP), e-mailing them at us740@pakmail.org or by accessing their website, www.weshipindianapolis.com

Dustin Mace co-manages the Pak Mail Geist Center store with Debbi. "We use everything from UPS to the United States Post Office and Fed Ex to large freight carriers, like LPL shipments. We sell both packing and office supplies. We can pretty much ship anything. Each one of our stores has a cat," Mace said. "Junior" is an orange tabby at their Geist store while "Thunder" keeps a watchful feline eye on their Broad Ripple location. The Geist store phone number is 823-8383 and their hours of operation are 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. Like the Broad Ripple store, they are closed on Sunday.

According to their website, www.pakmail.com, the Centennial, Colorado-based packing and shipping concern has over 500 stores in five countries, including Canada, Japan and Mexico. Their locations are owned by franchisees.

Drew Brand's Pak Mail store is delivering the goods, both literally and figuratively, in a vibrant corridor of commerce at 2113 Broad Ripple Avenue.