Ep. 3 | The Hub with Michael Allen featuring Roger Golden

Ever wonder how one goes from working on a strawberry farm to leading a successful engineering company? You're about to find out. In this fascinating episode, we sit down with Roger Golden, the president of Golden Engineering, and delve into his extraordinary career journey. We journey from his humble beginnings, family's move to Richmond, and his decision to attend Taylor University, to his experience with computers and his triumphant return to Golden Engineering.

The conversation takes a nostalgic turn as Roger reflects on his experience working with his father and how that has sculpted his career. As Golden Engineering hits the big 5-0, Roger shares how they are celebrating this milestone with food and festivities. Opening up about his children and the possibility of a third-generation takeover, Roger paints a vivid picture of the company's legacy and its future.

But it's not all business. Roger shares his international travel experiences, and how they've enriched his life and career. We discuss the changing demands for Golden Engineering's products post 9/11, and how the company responded. Tune in and learn how Roger intertwines government, God, and business success. It's a compelling tale of financial success, humanity, and a family's desire to use their wealth for the greater good.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the hub powered by manpower of Richmond. I am your host, michael Allen, and here on the hub we interview local business leaders, community partners and various special guests. We share unique and untold stories of companies, organizations and people who are making a difference in our community. Listeners, if you know of anybody looking for employment, check out our jobs at mprichmancom or send your resume to resume. At mprichmancom, our local franchise, has offices in Richmond, portland and Connorsville and soon coming to Newcastle, and at manpower we have various options to specifically meet your employment needs. We are a locally owned but a national brand community invested staffing company and we've been serving there since 1966.

Speaker 1: 1:02

So today with me is Roger Golden. He is president of Golden Engineering, located at 6364 Means Road in Centerville. They were founded in 1973 and they're a manufacturer of portable X-ray generators. Welcome, roger, thank you for coming on today. And one of the traditions I've started here on the hub is to ask our guests about their very first job. So, going back a few years, what was the first job that you had where you actually got like a paycheck and taxes taken out?

Speaker 2: 1:44

Well, if you want, very first job was working in a strawberry farm when I was like 12, that doesn't count. But, anyway, well, it made like a dollar an hour.

Speaker 1: 1:53

Yeah, it was pretty good.

Speaker 2: 1:54

That was a big deal. So summer job, first real job like post college, was for EDS electronic data systems, working at a Chevrolet branch office in Troy, michigan. What did you do there? What was what? I listened to people complain about their cars Chevrolet. I worked at a customer service center. So when you'd call in the 800 number and you had questions on your warranty or stuff, the dealership wasn't able to take care of. That's where your call went. So they're like it was fun. I mean a couple hundred post college graduates. So it was. It was a fun environment.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Well, what was kind of like the hot car that they were making at that time.

Speaker 2: 2:43

I mean same. Yeah, I mean Corvette, that was Camaro you had. Yeah, I mean those would be the big ones.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Yeah, I mean because the models have changed quite a bit over the years, but sure they're still making pickup trucks, yeah they're a funny story.

Speaker 2: 3:01

I had one guy call in and he wanted to. He had like a Camaro and he wanted to race someone. And he was calling in and he wanted to find out how to undo the governor on it. You know, like it maxed it out at like 120 miles an hour or something and he's like how do I undo this? And like we can't tell you that.

Speaker 1: 3:19

Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2: 3:22

Anyway, you ran into all kinds of things.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Yeah, I bet that was. Did you do that very long?

Speaker 2: 3:26

I did it for like a year, a year and a half and yeah, it wasn't bad.

Speaker 1: 3:31

It was enjoyable, so tell us a little bit about kind of where you're from, your upbringing.

Speaker 2: 3:41

So I was. I was born in Detroit 1967, and then grew up in Ann Arbor, michigan, until I was a freshman in high school, and then I moved down, started at Centerville right after Thanksgiving break, my freshman year. So I was a big, big change, but I enjoyed it.

Speaker 1: 4:01

How did your family, how did your parents decide to come to Richmond?

Speaker 2: 4:06

My mom had grown up here. She lived in the Greensburg area and they had farmland and my dad he had had started this business in Ann Arbor in early seventies and he wanted to get away from just Southeast Michigan. I was born in the middle of riots in 67 up there in Detroit and he saw that was kind of like I don't know about this area and he grew up in Lafayette. That's where he was from. So he wanted to get back to like farming community and back to Indiana. That's that'd be pretty tough.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Like you know, you go to school in this area your whole life and all of a sudden you're in high school and then you're just totally transplanted into a whole new school system. No friends, whatever Was that? Was that a little challenging, yeah, but I went from a big school system to a small one.

Speaker 2: 4:54

So, you know, you got to Centerville and there's 130 people in the class and you're the new kid, you know, and so you got a lot of attention and it wasn't bad. Good, it was good.

Speaker 1: 5:05

So, and then you were being from Michigan Originally, you kind of didn't end up going back to school in Michigan, no, I went to.

Speaker 2: 5:23

I was interested in that kind of. I thought you know I grew up in the campus of University of Michigan Thought, oh, this would be great. But I went to Taylor, which is an hour and a half from here. Okay, and my sister had gone there. She was a senior, my freshman year, and my mom was like, well, why don't you go there? You guys can share a car your freshman year and then decide if you want to go someplace different. I went there and I really liked it as a small school but probably more social environment with 1500 students, maybe край.

Speaker 1: 5:57

What did you decide to study Taylor Business Business, Just like a business degree. Is there any specialty that you took?

Speaker 2: 6:06

or was it just it was business system, so kind of a computer emphasis, but yeah, yeah, I mean, I always suspect computers in are a little bit different. Yeah, a little bit yeah a little bit.

Speaker 1: 6:17

I think my biggest exposure to computers, like when I was at Ball State, was like just a Mac word processor.

Speaker 2: 6:25

Yeah, it was like the extent of it at the time. Took like a cobalt programming class and yeah, I mean definitely was a lot different.

Speaker 1: 6:33

Oh, another world, yeah, yeah. So eventually you came to work at Golden Engineering. But how long did you have a career outside of Golden before you came back here to work in the Golden Engineering?

Speaker 2: 6:53

Well, I was. So I was up in Detroit at that Chevrolet branch or Chevrolet office for like a year and a half. I started getting tired of it. I thought I might move back here. And then I ended up moving to New York with and working in a Chevrolet branch office, but that was I'd interviewed to work at one of those like I want to work in Cincinnati or someplace in the Midwest.

Speaker 2: 7:17

And that didn't go through. And then they came to me, like on a Friday, and said hey, we have this opening in New York. You'd start Monday. This was on Friday. Wow, we'll give you a half hour to decide. And I called back. I talked to my mom actually, and she's like go, you know, experience New York. And so I went and I was out there for a year and then they closed that branch office where I was. So I decided I either would have to stay within General Motors and find a different place to work. So I'm like it's time to go back home. That's when I came back and that's when you started working at Golden Engineering.

Speaker 1: 7:52

And what year would that have been?

Speaker 2: 7:54

90, the end of 92? So I was a little nervous because I was like I wasn't married and I'm like, OK, if I move back to centerville I'll probably live there the rest of my life and it's not the most exciting place as a 25 year old single person. So I was a little nervous about that, but it was great.

Speaker 1: 8:16

So one of the reasons why I was really I mean, I've known you for for a long time and and one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is just just because our relationship, but also your company, is celebrating 50, 50 years this year and then your company makes a product that I think is unique in that I'm not sure how many people in the local community really know what it is that with Golden Engineering manufacturers, at least people have talked to you sometimes and mentioned your company. They not necessarily they've maybe heard of it or they've known you through your involvement in the community one way or another, but as far as what you manufacture. So maybe you could just maybe kind of cover that a little bit about what you make, what your product is.

Speaker 2: 9:13

So yeah, it's battery powered portable x-ray machine. So they're powered by a DeWalt battery packs, like same battery you have on a drill, and they weigh between five pounds and 15 pounds depending on the model. They'll go through a half inches steel up to almost two inches of steel. So the primary market for this is bomb detection security, so that'd be US government, bomb squads, military. But then there's also something called non destructive testing, so like petrochemical industry. So if they want to look at pipes like we have a lot on the North slope up in Alaska so look through the insulation and look at the status of the pipe, see if there's any cracks in the welds interesting.

Speaker 1: 10:07

So this was a product that your dad your father invented or came up with the idea, or perfected an idea or I would say, perfected or enhance the idea.

Speaker 2: 10:19

He was a engineer at a company up there called Bendix Aerospace and he was on a project where they made an x-ray and he changed the design and, yeah, that was. So you kind of perfected it or improved it.

Speaker 1: 10:35

Right, so your client base is international Correct, and so I mean who, who purchases this? I mean, I mean what kind of people do you come across? Or companies, or I guess maybe government, or I mean I maybe just Follow up with that a little bit more about who would.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Well, the. So the first x-ray we ever and we're in our 50 year celebration this year so the first product we ever delivered went to the Knoxville Police Department. That was November 18th of 1973. The next two that we sold went to the Netherlands and went to their government so I don't know Ministry of Defense or Ministry of Interior, I don't know how they found out about it exactly, but they did. And then they contacted an agent to get a hold of us to buy through them. So when we sell internationally we have distributors. So a distributor will have a territory like usually a country. So we had an agent in the Netherlands. We had, I mean, we have probably 30, 40 different agents around the world now. So that's how we sell internationally. But US government is probably 30% of our sales, international is about 30% and small engineering firms use it for forensic engineering, mm-hm.

Speaker 1: 12:05

Have you ever heard any kind of interesting story about you know, when it comes to like bomb detection or something from someone that's used your product, that they found something that was like something bad could really happen, but they were able to find, you know, detect it through your product. I mean, has anybody ever shared a kind of interesting story with you like that or not?

Speaker 2: 12:29

Yeah, well okay. Every day. I mean it's used. We've had I mean the people that use it will say I mean, let's say, hundreds of lives. So yeah, they're X-raying something that's going to blow up and if they didn't see it in the X-ray, they would have maybe tried to disarm it and it could have blown up and killed them. So it happens all the time. You've probably heard of the Unabomber. They use the X-ray on their, on his cabin, to look for booby traps and things like that.

Speaker 1: 13:01

So yeah, I mean all. Yeah. I guess there's so much of that that goes on behind the scenes that people probably have our clues to the number of times or something stuff like that's going on. You know where they're using that product. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:16

I mean a lot of times it's, it's something that's not, it's like just a backpack that someone left somewhere. I mean that's 95% of the time, fortunately, but there are times when it's not that.

Speaker 1: 13:28

Yeah, you know you went to work with your father. I, you know, in my business I worked with my, my dad, for at least closely for about 25 years. What was that experience like, working with your dad? I mean, you know it's, the dynamics can be kind of interesting when you're working, you know, with a parent or even with siblings, and and you've kind of done both. I mean, how's, how's that been over the years?

Speaker 2: 13:59

It was. It was great. I mean you kind of I think you know, you think you know your parents, like when you grow up with them and you're in high school or you're you know and you think you know them, but when you actually work with them for 20 years, I mean as you, as you know you, you get to know them on a whole different level and you know it's it's adult on adult and so, yeah, it was a great experience. But he was very authentic, like he, you know, he lived out what he, what he believed and treated people really well, and so it was a good.

Speaker 2: 14:37

it was a good role model.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Well, I think you know everything that I hear about people that work with you. You must have picked up on that legacy because you know I hear similar things about you and that way how you treat your employees and and deal with people. So you're celebrating 50 years this year. What do you? What are the kind of things that you guys are doing over at Golden to kind of celebrate the small stuff?

Speaker 2: 15:06

Food. You know food's good. Everyone likes that. I mean, sometimes people celebrate, you know let's do speeches and do you know events? I'm like let's do stuff that people actually like to do. So every month we as a company get together and we've we'll do a company launch and we stepped it up this year so we the quality of the food is a bit better, for sure, and then we'll have different people come in and speak. Did we had? Our agent from Germany was here last month, so he talked about, you know how the products used overseas. And then we're doing a big celebration in September where we're inviting customers to come and we'll have a day of they'll be doing some training and then also just celebrating, will do raffles and stuff for.

Speaker 1: 15:54

so nice, nice, yeah. So, um, what's? You know your second generation in your company and what do you see things moving? You know down the road for golden engineering, you know you have other siblings of children and you've got children of your own. Is there any chance that you think the company will go to a third generation?

Speaker 2: 16:25

yeah, I mean, it's just it's hard to know, um, I mean I didn't think I wasn't interested in working there when I was 15, um, so you just you never know. It's kind of depends on what their interest is. My kids are ages 13 to 16, and then nieces and nephews, or we have some that are working age now but 20. So it just kind of depends on their interest. Partly right, I mean for myself.

Speaker 1: 16:54

I mean, in 1990 I came to work with my dad. I was thinking a couple of years, and now it's been like 33 years, so uh, but uh, I've enjoyed the opportunity to stay in this community and work, and so you know, you've, you've chosen that for yourself. I mean what, when you first came back, you were concerned about, you know, coming to a small city or whatever, and so it's worked out okay, pretty good for you, hasn't?

Speaker 2: 17:19

yeah, I mean it's been great. I, from the job standpoint, I didn't appreciate what we did. Like you know, I hadn't. I didn't really talk to customers. I didn't. It was cool growing up because we'd have people from overseas come and stay with us people from england, people from israel, and that was cool. But I didn't really see the impact of the product. And then it didn't take long, you know, six months in the job and like this is this is really cool. I really like the customer base. They didn't. You know, chevrolet customers complain about everything and uh, our customers don't complain about anything. So that was, that was different and it was, it was great.

Speaker 2: 18:02

But uh, you know, from a social standpoint it was a little tough of again being being single and I ended up. I had a lot of good friends, made friends in indianapolis, so like every weekend almost I'd I'd go over there. I played a lot of volleyball. I'd go over there like friday night, just spend the night with friends. We played volleyball a weekend and just do different activities. And then I met my wife here, um, when I was 33, 34, and we got married the following year. So I was almost 35 and anna's great and uh, she's from here and uh, you know, it's a great place to raise a family, way cheaper than other places. Uh, so that's a that's a big plug for for wane county, mm-hmm. So it's, yeah, a great place to raise a family, uh what other, uh, what other organizations have you been involved in?

Speaker 1: 18:58

I mean, I know myself, but sharing maybe with those that might be listening what are some of the other things that you've enjoyed doing. You know, outside of Golden Engineering. You know organizations you've been a part of or participated in.

Speaker 2: 19:12

Well, the first one. It was funny, it was short, so I got married in 2002. And shortly after that Chris Hillkirk came to our work and she was the executive director for Junior Achievement. She actually saw the wedding invitation in the newspaper and she's like hey, would you have any interest in being on the board for Junior Achievement? And I had done. I had worked as a volunteer in the classroom and I liked what they did. But I was like I'm too young, like I'm too young to be on a board. You know, I just I didn't you know, I just didn't feel like a full adult.

Speaker 2: 19:49

But so Junior Achievement I did join the board and that was a great. It's a great organization, they do good, good things. And then that led to being on the board for Habitat for Humanity for a while and the EDC and Boys and Girls Club now for several years, and that's a great organization, as you know.

Speaker 1: 20:07

Yeah, we, we both serve on that board and they do a lot of great things in our community. So you know, I kind of got I kind of got confused about your college, cause I know you're a big Michigan fan and so I I know you went to Taylor but just kind of kind of blanked on that a little bit.

Speaker 2: 20:27

Well, Taylor, on the national scene they don't have much of a football program. You know, you got a route for someone that's at least a contender or someone that's worth watching.

Speaker 1: 20:36

Yeah, I mean so. I mean you know to be a Michigan fan, you know it isn't a big 10, but you know you're kind of in this IU, purdue, notre Dame, even Ohio State bubble in this area, you know. So Michigan, you know, root for Michigan probably isn't like a high tier team that most of the local people you know really push for.

Speaker 2: 20:58

So yeah, and it was brutal for a long time because my wife's family were big Ohio State fans so I had to put up with that, for you know Michigan losing to them every year and then year that was. It was tough. So last couple of years have been a little better.

Speaker 1: 21:11

Yeah, what's it look like this year.

Speaker 2: 21:15

Uh good, I mean, I don't know. They should have a good team and see what happens at the end of the year.

Speaker 1: 21:19

Yeah, it's always that when I get down to the very end, you know, trying to compete with some of these other, uh, like you know, the Alabama's or Clemson's or whatever, it seems like, just like you need just a they need just another little bit to get past those teams.

Speaker 1: 21:35

So I haven't seen happen yet, but yeah, it's, it's tough business. So, uh, you know your, your father uh was um a good Christian man and you know I and you know we, we kind of got to know each other first just through attending, you know worshiping and church together and through that association. So I was just uh curious how you know, you know family and faith had a how did how that kind of meshes in business or has it at all. I mean, has that, how that's played a role in your company? Yeah, it.

Speaker 2: 22:15

It played a huge role. Um, just how you run it and how you treat people, and um, yeah it, it played a role for my both my parents, Um and uh. I guess one way I would explain it. This is interesting.

Speaker 2: 22:34

I don't know if you remember this, but, uh, barack Obama in like 2012, made a comment of like, well, you didn't build that, talking about the business, and he said you know the, and he kind of was implying he said you know the, the streets and the infrastructure and everything was like the government built that. So I think what he was getting at a little bit was your, your sort of indebted to the government for allowing you to succeed, and I thought I mean Pete, he, he took some grief for that statement, but I thought it was really interesting concept of who do you think is ultimately responsible for the success of your business, and is it, you know, the government? It certainly does play a role. The, your employees, play a huge role. Your customers play a huge role, but ultimately, in our situation, we go back to God played a role in it.

Speaker 2: 23:29

I mean there's there's things the company really shouldn't exist. You look at 50 years when we started and things that are hard to explain through that 50 years. So it was like God blessed it, god allowed it to happen, he brought people when we needed people and so you, you look back and say, well, what is he? And it made my dad nervous because he came from nothing. And to have success, and have financial success, it was like I know to whom much is given, much is required, to whom much more is given, much more is required. So as it succeeded, he felt a little more uncomfortable and he kept looking for this one big thing that maybe God wanted him to do and he never. I don't know that he ever found that thing, but I could see little things along the way of the relationship again with employees and with customers, and he made an impact on a lot of different people.

Speaker 1: 24:23

So how many employees are at Golden today? Approximately 28. 28. And that's when you first came joined your father. Was it smaller then? Oh?

Speaker 2: 24:39

yeah, it was about 15.

Speaker 1: 24:41

15. So it's grown over the years, and so, just I guess, the world that we live in has, unfortunately or fortunately someone's created a greater need for your product.

Speaker 2: 24:56

Yeah, seen that. Yeah, 9-11, for sure. I mean things shifted hugely at that point and it was really sad to see that, obviously, but it was nice to be in a position that could help our country. But, yeah, it grew a lot after that.

Speaker 1: 25:17

Well, I appreciate you sharing about your company and just having a conversation today. Is there anything else that we would find you'd like to share about Golden Engineering that you guys do? Or I mean kind of covered it, but I may have missed something along the way.

Speaker 2: 25:35

No, I mean, we do a bunch of stuff. To me it's all interesting and I could talk for a lot longer than people want to hear me talk.

Speaker 1: 25:47

So I guess I was going to ask you. I kind of forgot, just remember now. But because you sell your product as all of the world, you've got to travel some around the world. Has that been kind of a cool thing about your job, or do you not do that as much as maybe I'm assuming you have in the past?

Speaker 2: 26:04

Yeah, I mean I could go. I mean it's funny, I could go. We're in 80 different countries. I could go wherever and visit my wife and I went to Slovenia and we visited a bomb squad in Slovenia and they had our equipment. We've been to Israel a few times and visited our customers there in England and all over Europe, but we anywhere in Japan, whatever. But I'm more especially now. I used to travel a lot more before having kids and I bring my wife with me sometimes and I don't like traveling as much now and just too much time away from family. But yeah, it's interesting and we definitely deal with interesting people and I went to Russia with the St Petersburg and Moscow and our dealer there was great and it's sad to see what's going on now but it's been interesting and you even see the trends of we used to sell its under Europe and now we're selling to China and Southeast Asia and as things happen in the world, you see how our sales have changed. But that international dynamic is always really interesting.

Speaker 1: 27:20

The times that you've gone overseas, is there one particular trip that stands out in your mind? It was kind of a really unique experience, whether it was either just really enjoyable or just maybe kind of weird.

Speaker 2: 27:38

Yeah, that's a good question, Nothing I want to say.

Speaker 1: 27:47

Maybe you can tell me off my later time.

Speaker 2: 27:50

There are some things that were pretty funny, but I don't know that I really want to say it.

Speaker 1: 27:54

Yeah, I know, that's fine, I don't want to implicate myself. Right, I understand that's fine, all right. Well, hey, I appreciate you taking the time and talking with us today and good luck in the rest of your years. You celebrate 50 years and I really appreciate you coming on and talking to us today. All right, thanks, appreciate it, Thanks.

Speaker 2: 28:15

Roger Yep the.