JAFFREY — His company circles the globe, designing fireworks displays for festivities in Washington D.C., Boston, Europe, Brazil, China and Canada, but it’s the Festival of Fireworks in his hometown of Jaffrey that Steve Pelkey, president of Atlas PyroVision Productions, looks forward to the most each year.

At Saturday’s 21st annual Festival of Fireworks event at Silver Ranch Airpark in Jaffrey, Pelkey sat among the tens of thousands of attendees, coordinating the fireworks show by radio. Among the 800 or so displays a year the company puts on, Jaffrey’s show is Pelkey’s personal favorite, he said in an interview earlier this month. It’s the show he and his employees have the most creative control over and the show that puts all of their skills to the test.

“We have the ability in this display to test our new products, creative programming skills, and to challenge us all as a company to provide the highest quality and level of entertainment for all of our customers today and tomorrow,” he said. “It has been my greatest personal privilege to spend my professional life in the community which I grew up in.”

Under the leadership of Pelkey, who in 1986 began running the company for his father-in-law, Robert Korpi, Atlas has seen annual sales grow from $500,000 to nearly $8 million today.

“The level of success we’ve had has been quite humbling, especially that we’ve been able to do it in our own hometown,” Pelkey said.

Today, Atlas controls a bit more than 70 percent of the display fireworks business in New England, making it the largest company of its kind in this region and one of the top 10 in the country. In the retail side of the business, Atlas sells class C fireworks for consumer use at five store locations in New Hampshire and is the largest retailer in New England. The company employees 22 fulltime employees, 60 seasonal operations employees and 800 part-time display technicians.

Importing fireworks shells from China, the U.S. and Spain, Atlas works closely with manufacturers, especially in China, to design effects used in the company’s shows. The fireworks are then put to use in the musically choreographed display shows Atlas employees design, Pelkey explained.

Pelkey has spent more than two decades developing relationships with manufacturers and with customers, and he said it is those relationships that formed the foundation of Atlas’ longstanding success.

“When I began as general manager in 1986, my goal was to double the size of the business in three years. I spent the first 90 days in this business visiting every single city and town that hosted a fireworks display in New England to introduce myself to each of them as the new Atlas Display Fireworks company,” Pelkey said. “Some of those doors were very difficult to open, but I knew that developing trusting relationships with many of them was key.”

Humble beginnings

Pelkey, a 1980 Conant High School graduate, didn’t go on to obtain a business degree, nor did he grow up in the fireworks business with Atlas, which was founded in 1950 by William and Lillian Anderson of Jaffrey. A career in fireworks hadn’t occurred to him while growing up in Jaffrey, but the path Pelkey took led him to heights he never imagined.

“Didn’t have a lot of money growing up,” Pelkey recalled. “Mom was single, raising my brother and me.”

Pelkey began working at an early age to help out his mother, who worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant at a local nursing home.

“I had a pretty special bond with my mother because she worked extremely hard,” he said, adding that she always encouraged him in whatever he set out to do.

Pelkey tried taking courses at Franklin Pierce College, while working multiple jobs at D.D. Bean, Pizza Barn and for the town of Jaffrey, but the pressures of work made studying difficult.

Looking for something better in life, Pelkey joined the U.S. Air Force and spent nearly four years in Okinawa, Japan, working on missile guidance systems. He also took some college courses in marketing while he was there.

Pelkey and his wife at the time, Christine, also started a cleaning business for fellow officers and military families. The company they ran and Pelkey’s military service taught him a lot about business, he said.

Joining the family business

When Pelkey returned home with his family after completing his service, his father-in-law, Robert Korpi, asked him to run Atlas, which only had a couple of employees at the time. The fireworks industry at the time was disorganized, Pelkey said.

“I just wanted to take it to a new level where it was a real business, an entertainment business,” he said.

Pelkey wanted the fireworks display to be the main show, not just part of the show, he said. In those days, Pelkey did it all, from designing the shows to driving the trucks that went to show locations to maintaining the equipment.

“You had to start from somewhere,” he said.

In 1986, Atlas had just 15 percent of the market share for display shows in New England. The company grew fast and furiously under Pelkey’s direction, but difficulties in some of Korpi’s other business ventures led him to close Atlas in the fall of 1989, Pelkey recalled, and the business was auctioned to a competitor, which later agreed to sell the equipment back to Pelkey. Re-mortgaging their home and borrowing $100,000, Pelkey and Christine reestablished the business under their own ownership in 1990, and then sold half of the company to D.D. Bean & Sons of Jaffrey.

“D.D. Bean afforded me the opportunity I never would have [had],” he said. “We actually made [Atlas] so profitable, they basically turned a $50,000 investment five years later into a $500,000 investment.”

After five years, Pelkey bought out D.D. Bean. Pelkey wanted to reinvest the company’s profits in new technology for display equipment. He was building a computer-based fireworks firing display business. The decision to grow with electronic technology put Atlas five or six years ahead of its competition by the mid-1990s in the ability to shoot fireworks better, cheaper and safer, Pelkey said.

“This set us apart from any other company in New England or the Northeast,” he said.

Atlas won the 1994 North American Fireworks Competition and went on to win Best in Choreography at a competition in Decazeville, France, in 1999 and Best Synchronization at a competition in Shanghai, China, in 2005.

Part of a community

Atlas is a visible corporate supporter in the Jaffrey community and beyond, and Pelkey said it isn’t going anywhere.

“The recession has hit us mostly in the retail side of the business,” he said, noting the company saw a 15 percent decline in sales in 2008. “As for the professional display side of the business, it has actually grown 12 percent in the last two years alone. With the display business representing 65 to 70 percent of our overall business, it has provided us with some breathing room during these last couple of years.”

Pelkey isn’t interested in the offers to buy Atlas. His daughter, Sarah Bergeron, the vice-president of the company, may want to take it over one day or else it may be some loyal employees who do so, Pelkey said.

Growing up in a small town, he said, has taught him the meaning of loyalty and of giving back to the community.

“I think it plays a significant role in those companies that are successful, and success isn’t all about money,” he said.

Over the next 20 years, Pelkey said, he sees the company transitioning so that he is less relied upon. Until then, it’s more trips around the world and vigilance in holding on to Atlas’ customer base.

“I’m sure I’ll have my time to sleep when I’m 72, rocking on the porch,” he said. “I’ll just get to sit back and watch [the fireworks show], instead of being the one that has to play the front role.”