We look forward to sharing many success stories here, but as we start up, we have only one - our founder's company, which began in his garage in 1980.

This company manufactures hydraulic drilling machinery for customers worldwide. It is a typical story of entrepreneurship and independence, and our employees include machinists, welders, mechanics, engineers, draftsmen, managers, and office clerical staff.

Before he inadvertently started this program 5 years ago, our owner was like most other small business owners. A business owner friend would ask, "How's your business going?" and he would answer, "Well, it would be great if it wasn't for the people." Then he could easily launch into an entertaining tale of the most irresponsible or illegal act which had occurred recently.

Since that time, things have changed so much that he now loves to share stories about the good things our employees have done - for themselves and for the company. What a difference! Now our motto is, "We build good equipment and good people!"

We're not saying this happened easily, quickly, or without problems, but we are saying the result was overwhelmingly worthwhile. The biggest key to success was hiring the operations manager, an ex-offender who had been clean and sober for 7 years and had been a drug counselor for four years. His ability to hire, train, and motivate people has been indispensable because he really understands. He now hires on the basis of intuitively listening and feeling when a person is ready to change his life. They don't all make it, but they are all helped here.

The principles of acceptance, honesty and integrity rub off on other employees with or without previous problems with the law, and the end result is a family that works well together and appreciates one another.