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and x broken units in his teens. David referred clients who needed small repairs, and Troy invoiced them himself— "my rst little taste of having my own business," he points out.•In 2002, the summer after graduation, he registered TDH Enterprises as a sole propri- etorship, using a non-specic name because he planned to get into multiple businesses. About eight years ago, as ener‚y-eƒcient LED light- ing decreased demand for neon, Troy landed his rst big contract, for $200,000, and recruited David for his building and engineering expertise.•Unlike his father, who enjoys guring out how to make signs and displays, Troy prefers management. "I actu- ally like paperwork," he notes. "I like dealing with customers. I like the whole sales aspect of it. So it was a good comple- ment for us to eventually partner that together." Until 2016, TDH was the back-end supplier and support for other companies, which let it get involved in projects it wouldn't have had access to, such as the Telus Garden sign combining LED and neon, Flight Centre rebranding across the province and digital screens for BC Place stadium and the Richmond Olympic Oval. Now, as TDH Experiential Fabricators, the company works directly with clients that include clothiers Arc'teryx and Lululemon and the Richmond Auto Mall Association. The new name re˜ects customers' ability to experience the creative and manufacturing process as well as the nal product. In the past three or four years, neon has regained popularity. "It's become this fad of having a neon quote on your wall or having a sign that re˜ects the history of the area," Troy says. Orders really took oš for Andrew when he recreated the signature of Troy's wife, lifestyle blogger Monika Hibbs, in neon for the wall of her home oƒce in 2013. "She posted about it, and everybody loved it," Andrew recalls. "I almost feel like it kick-started the quotes-on-a- wall trend." He ships his signs to customers throughout the U.S. and Canada, 80 percent of whom nd him via Instagram. One of his clients is his mother, Loretta, executive director of Surrey's City Dream Centre Society, which supports food, education and dental programs for the underprivi- leged. Andrew is making heart- shaped neon signs designed by Monika to be sold at For The Love Of Thrifting, a store his mom opened in 2016 to raise funds for the charity. As for David Hibbs, the original sign maker in the family? "My dad always says he never expected any of his sons to get into the business," Troy acknowledges. "He gured he would retire and that was it. Now it's something that could continue on, so he's quite happy with that." The so-called Super Bowl of eSports, DOTA2*, comes to Vancouver from August 20 to 25, selling out Rogers Arena for its entire run. As global teams of superstar players prepare their thumbs to vie for a prize pool of about US$27 million, we put B.C.'s video game industry in the spotlight by Melissa Edwards Game On 20 BCBusiness jULY/AUGUST 2018 ( the informer ) G O F I G U R E READ THIS Economics dominates everyone's life, yet most people know little about it. Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's former minister of finance, is here to help. In a world where jargon often creates barriers to understanding, Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: Or, How Capitalism Works–and How It Fails uses plain language to demystify the global economic system. Varoufakis writes in the way a father would talk to his teenage daughter, such as explaining inflation and deflation by showing how cigarettes became a form of currency in German prisoner-of-war camps. Published by farrar, Straus and Giroux, the 224-page book is $26.65 in hardcover. In 2017, there were 152 interactive enter- tainment studios in B.C. +19% since 2015 5,900 full-time employees 1,333% Amount B.C.'s augmented and virtual reality sector is expected to grow between 2016 and 2020 $77,300 Average salary in Canada's video game industry B.C. is home to of Canada's interactive entertainment companies 27% * Defense of the Ancients video game championships COURTESY Of TDH ExPERIENTIAL fABRICATORS ROOSteR tALe TDH recreated the sai Woo restaurant sign in vancouver's Chinatown from a 1950s film clip

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