By Emily Christensen
When Armand Piecuch and six of his classmates created Fourth Wall Productions for Dr. Penni Pier’s journalism and communication capstone class, they never envisioned what their required production company could grow to be.
Yet after graduation in 2014, Piecuch, Justin Szykowny, Peter Hoffman, and Holly Hejlik found themselves wanting to continue what they had started: a production company dedicated to breaking through the invisible, imagined wall separating actors from the audience, better known as the fourth wall.
“We enjoyed the process of researching, producing, and executing a creative vision so much that we decided to just keep doing it,” Piecuch said.
Within weeks the group had partnered with Travis Bockenstedt ’09, then Wartburg’s McElroy Chair in Journalism and Communication, and fellow 2014 grad Torie Jochims to officially open Fourth Wall for outside business.
Pier hasn’t been surprised by the group’s success. She’s seen several other graduates go on to start their own businesses, but said Fourth Wall was the first to come out of capstone as a nearly holistic entity and continue the production company they started.
“It was an incredibly hard-working group, a very, very talented group,” Pier said. “I remember the students coming to me after the class and asking what I thought about them starting a company, and I said they should go for it.”
In the early days, the group split their time between the Cedar Valley and Denver, Colo. During a visit to Wartburg West, Bockenstedt connected with Jim Licko ’00, a Wartburg West National Advisory Board member and vice president of GroundFloor Media, a public relations agency that prides itself on a model comprising only seasoned industry talent.
Licko, recognizing the changes in his industry, was excited to present his team with a proposal that could provide them with top-notch video work at a reduced cost and give fellow Knights a leg up on the competition in Denver.
“The product they gave us was very good. We could tell they had been getting hands-on experience even though they had just graduated,” Licko said.
The well-respected and award-winning agency offered the startup office space and a steady stream of work, an arrangement that benefited both agencies.
“That early experience for a startup production company was invaluable. It acclimated us very quickly to the fast-paced world of marketing and PR and helped us make a name for ourselves in the local industry,” Piecuch said. “We had plenty of opportunities to learn and even more opportunities to fail, but those experiences taught us to value ourselves, value our product, and value the people who loved and supported us along the way.”
That partnership lasted until last summer, when GroundFloor Media and its sister agency, CenterTable (the agency’s creative arm), upped the ante. In August, the agency announced that CenterTable had acquired Fourth Wall Productions, officially bringing the young team—which still includes Piecuch, Szykowny, and Bockenstedet—into its fold of seasoned professionals.
“After 16 years of owning a business, you know when you come across an individual or a team that exemplifies what we call ‘talent-tude’—mad skills complemented by a great outlook on both work and life,” said Laura Love, GroundFloor Media founder and chief cultural officer. “The Fourth Wall team certainly showed us this, in addition to their integrity, work ethic, and willingness to jump in and be a part of our team. We both took a risk with one another, but when you feel that it is just meant to be, you know to trust your gut and make something bigger happen.”
Piecuch called the experience “one of the most surreal” of his life.
“It is an honor to work with a company that has consistently earned its place on the top of Outsidemagazine’s Best Places to Work list,” he said. “It is also incredibly humbling to know that something that my peers and I built out of our own raw talent and persistence has become a notable force in the industry, capable of telling compelling stories and affecting great change.”