Dennis Goering started his company, dhg Productions Inc., with $3,000 he borrowed from his grandmother to buy a video camera. That was 19 years and several expansions ago. Now dhg is a full-service production company that offers a wide range of film, video and multimedia solutions for clients.

Goering, an Ames native, studied telecommunicative arts at Iowa State University. He worked for a short time in television news photography before joining a Des Moines advertising agency, Fletcher Communications. When that agency dissolved, one of the clients he had been working for asked him to finish out the project he’d started for them. So he bought his first video camera and opened his own business.

Dhg moved several times in its early years before setting up headquarters in Urbandale in 1993. Wanting to own instead of rent and not having sufficient space at its Urbandale site to grow, Goering started looking at buildings last year and chose one west of downtown at 1925 High St. After a major renovation – every wall but two was probably torn out, Goering said – dhg moved to its new headquarters in December. The building is located just off Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway a couple blocks north of Ingersoll Avenue.

“We liked this building because it was close to the Gateway (West) expansion, and downtown is really starting to grow with businesses building bigger corporate facilities, and we wanted to be a part of that excitement,” Goering said.

Dhg’s new headquarters is outfitted with updated editing suites, a 35-by-50-foot production studio that includes a full kitchen, and added space for the company’s duplication services. In the next month, dhg expects to receive its new high-definition editing equipment, which it was unable to accommodate at its old site because of space limitations.

“High-definition is definitely starting to take off now, with all the local stations now broadcasting in it, so we want to make sure we are meeting the needs of the market,” Goering said. “It gives us another tool in our toolbox, another service we can offer to our clients to allow them to take advantage of the technology that is out there.”

Earlier this year, dhg branched out by opening an Indianapolis sales office that focuses on promoting the company’s tape, CD and DVD duplication and reproduction services. Dhg uses an automated CD-ROM duplication system that can make about 1,000 copies per day. Its biggest order right now is for a client who wants 6 million copies.

Dhg employs six full-time workers with marketing and media experience and several contract laborers. Goering expects to hire another three to five employees in the next year as the company continues to add clients on the local, state and national levels.

What makes dhg different from other production companies, Goering said, is not only does his staff assist with script writing, talent selection, production, editing, graphics and duplication, but the company also coordinates technology for live events, does Web site development and language translation.

“Basically we can be the one-stop shop from helping create the concept to producing the concept to actually delivering materials to the client,” he said. “We really combine corporate communications with our multimedia, combining the traditional techniques of video with new technologies into one comprehensive marketing idea.”