Atlanta Company Runs Vancouver Torch Relay

ATLANTA -- With 100 days to go until the opening of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, Canadians are already revved up and running.

It's the Olympic Torch Relay, and it's being organized by a family-owned operation based right here in Atlanta -- Ignition, an appropriate name for an Atlanta company that's been lighting the Olympic torch since the Games of 1996.

Since then, Ignition has organized hundreds of thousands of people in countries throughout the world for torch relays to kick off the Olympic Games in Nagano, Salt Lake City, Athens, Turino, Beijing, and now Vancouver.

"We started Ignition with one other employee -- basically the assistant," said company president Mike Hersom.

In the space of 13 years, and with clients like Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, and Research in Motion, the family-owned company has expanded worldwide.

"We have 53 people based all around the world. Literally we are a global agency," Hersom said.

The company's biggest torch relay challenge, says Hersom, was in China, where distances between cities and cultural differences forced the company to hire thousands of people in each urban location to keep the relay exciting over huge distances.

Looking back and fast-forwarding, it was 84 days and 16,000 miles for the Olympic torch to reach the Olympic cauldron in Atlanta, and in Canada it will be 106 days and cover 28,000 miles.

"The weather will play a huge role and keeping the staff motivated. Rain, sleet, snow, cold days, blustery winds, lots of snow," Hersom said.

"Imagine working 106 days in a row, every day under 35 below zero and sometimes worse with the wind chill," said Ignition executive Amanda Daniels, just back from the launch of the Canadian Torch Relay. "It's going to be very cold and a long journey. It's the longest domestic torch run relay that's been done to date."

And when this relay is over, Ignition will start its planning for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.