When he was a 19-year-old aspiring musician, Mike Current decided he needed a better way to make a living, so he went to coal-mining school. After a year of hanging ironwork for the shafts, he knew underground work wasn't for him. "I hated it," says the 55-year-old Current.

However, he kept on and soon moved up to ironwork in coal preparation plants. He traveled the East Coast like a gypsy, with his guitar as his constant companion, living in the back seat of his car. "I would work, get laid off and move to another job," says TSI Architectural Metals Inc.'s half owner and vice president.