Thiessens' torment took root when he was
in the first or second grade in McGill, a small mining town in central
Nevada. "A teacher called me stupid because I had trouble
reading," he said. All through school, he was the quiet little boy
in the back of the room.
"I think the teachers
just got tired of looking at me so they passed me on," he said. He
graduated from White Pine High School in Ely 1963, getting mostly C's,
D's and F's. He made the honour roll once, in his senior year when he
landed A's in auto mechanics and machine shop.
The day after graduation,
Thiessens moved to Reno, where 10 years later he started a small machine
shop with his last $200. Today, B&J specialises in welding, machine
parts and precision sheet metal work. With 50 employees, the company
conducts $5 million a year in business and just broke ground on a new
54,000 square-foot expansion.
Despite his success, the
stigma of being labelled a dummy haunted him through adulthood. He
compensated by being a good listener. He rarely forgets details and has
a solid grasp of math and figures, a trait essential to the industry,
others say.
"The majority of
everything we do is technical," said Randy Arnett of A&B
Precision, B&J's longest competitor. "It has more to do with
math, geometrical shapes, than words."
"He's always been a
decent competitor," Arnett said of Thiessens.
Then Thiessens was invited
to join a local chapter of The Executive Committee, a kind of
CEO-support group where non-competing chief executives discuss business
trials and tribulations in confidence.
Thiessens was reluctant.
"He was concerned he wouldn't measure up to the rest of the
group," said Randy Yost, committee chairman and former CEO of
Placer Bank of Commerce in California. "About six months after we
met, he told me he had a reading problem," Yost said. "At that
time, he was very close-lipped about it."
Thiessens confessed to the
rest of the group last year.
"He was a little
teary. His voice was shaking," recalled Doug Damon, a group member
and CEO of Damon Industries, a beverage concentrate manufacturer.
"It was clearly a difficult thing for him to do." Damon was
surprised by Thiessens confession. "I knew he was a high school
graduate, and so I guess I automatically assumed he knew how to read.
He'd been very successful in his business. Who would have thought?"
Thiessens feared titters
and jeers from his college-educated CEO peers. Instead, he was
overwhelmed by support. "As much as I respected him for what he
accomplished, it enhanced my respect for him," Yost said.
Later, Thiessens found a
tutor to instruct him for an hour a day, five days a week. That's also
when he told his plant managers. The rest of his employees also found
out after some time.
Thiessens recently read Gung
Ho, a book on employee relations, as a management team project. It
was slow going as he underlined all the words he didn't know and later
sought help with. But he finished it. He wants someday to be able to
rifle through mail as quickly as his wife.
More importantly, he hopes
his story will encourage others to learn to read.
"There is no shame in
not knowing how to read," said Mrs. Thiessens, his wife of 37
years. "The shame is not doing anything about it."
(by Sandra Chereb)
The greatest general
Let me tell you about a
man who died and met Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. Realising Saint
Peter was a wise and knowledgeable person, he said, "Saint Peter, I
have been interested in military history for many years. Tell me who was
the greatest general of all times?"
Saint Peter quickly
responded, "Oh, that's a simple question. It is that man right over
there," as he pointed nearby.
The man said, "You
must be mistaken, Saint Peter. I knew that man on earth. He was just a
common laborer."
"That's right, my
friend," replied Saint Peter. "But he would have been the
greatest general of all time -- if he had been a general."
You were created with
natural abilities and an internal compass that guides you toward a
particular focus for your life. That's only the starting point; the next
step is yours. You have an obligation to expand that potential to its
ultimate destiny.
Michelangelo said,
"It is only well with me when I have a chisel in my hand."
Discover what you are
supposed to do and do it!
(by Neil Eskelin)
(Culled from the Net)
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