Heat Treat Radio #95: Heat Treat Legend John Becker

A Summer at Ford Motor Company (01:20)

Doug Glenn: John, you were the founder and owner of the J.L. Becker Company which was recently purchased by Gasbarre Furnace Group. You’re no longer associated with that company, since you sold it. You are associated with Heat Treat Equipment, Inc., which you also started.

How did you get started in the heat treat industry?

John Becker: It goes back to the summer of 1964 when I had been going to a junior college, and I started dating my wife. Her father was in the steel division at Ford Motor Company, and I needed a summer job in 1964. Through his contacts, I was able to get a job there. My position was very "prestigious." I had my own tool; it was called a broom! Through sweeping up, I was a first-class janitor. Then, I was able to move up to a helper’s position.

In working there for the summer, I saw a lot about the making of steel and the production processes. I used to hang around the lab, because in the summer, the lab was air conditioned; and I could pretend that I was interested in that area. By the end of the summer, they asked if I would consider going on co-op for metallurgy. I thought, “Well, that sounds easy. I can do that,” not realizing what I was in for.

I started in metallurgy, and worked for Ford and went to Western Michigan University where I received a BES (Bachelor of Engineering Science) in 1968. During that time of co-op, I worked and took classes. I used to take classes at Wayne State, Lawrence Tech, and other places where I could get some hours or get a class.

After I graduated, they put me in an area called the AADGO (Automotive Assembly Division General Office) where I was a fastener engineer. We were dealing with nuts, bolts, screws, and washers. I started visiting heat treat shops. At the same time, they put me on the MBA management program through the University of Michigan.

There were a lot of people in Rockford, IL, that made fasteners. One of the areas we were concerned with was heat treating. That thing called the Delta or appendix C, the Q101 (Quality 101 points) for Ford.  I would go around inspecting plants, and I got to know several people in heat treating. I was a bit fascinated by it.

In 1970, Ford laid me off. I was still finishing up school, and I had a child. I actually started teaching school part time and did that for a while. I was a “the permanent substitute,” so I would work a lot of different days. That was quite enjoyable!

I started working for a company that sold high temperature materials: conveyer belts, etc. and was pretty successful. I looked at what I was getting paid. At this company, some reps were getting 10%. I was getting a salary and expenses, and I understood that it was a pretty good deal. But I still looked at reps and figured I made 10% of that value.

Starting a Business in a Basement (06:18)

I decided to really go on my own, and I started the J.L. Becker Company out of my house as a rep. I had four principals, and a few others in the industry. I didn’t represent these, but I could sell their products. Two examples were the wire mesh conveyer belt of Canada and I Squared R, which provides silicon carbide heating elements. We had a line of hearth plates, thermocouples. I became the Lockheed engineering rep. Because of that, I called on a lot of OEMs like Surface Combustion and Atmosphere Furnace and others.

We built it up. Everybody in Michigan had a basement. My dad had given me a used desk and, in those days, you had a phone that was wired to the wall. My dad had given me an old phone, so I started a company. In the basement of the house, I had a little cubby, about 4 ft by 7 ft, and that was my world headquarters.

After 6 months, I started to interview for a new job with salary and benefits, and all the things I didn’t have, because it wasn’t as great as I thought.

I had been calling on Monroe Auto Equipment in Monroe, Michigan. Monroe Auto Equipment has four plants that do powdered metallurgy; they make components for shock absorbers. I had become friends with a guy there, Fleming Pruitt. I still remember his name to this day.

He called me and asked for a particular product. I got a price for it, called him back, and he said, “I made a mistake. I didn’t want 20 pieces, I wanted 200.” I was going to make 10 bucks a piece or some number like that. All of a sudden, I was, like, “Whoa!” That started it.

Then I got another order, another order, and another order. Over time, I started thinking: “Why don’t I have some of my own products where I can control the price?” I could buy it for X and add my overhead to it.

Growing the Business (09:13)

In 1974, I moved to an office in Livonia, Michigan. It was in a multitenant-type building, and the fellow had rented two spots, and there was one empty office. I started there. I ended up hiring a gal by the name of Carol Campbell, right about then, for $90 a week and no benefits. She did an outstanding job for me.  Around 1976, I hired Dave Peterson. Dave still, as you know, works with me today. I couldn’t chase him away. I tried and failed.

From there, I added another piece of the puzzle. Each year we expanded. I got busy enough where I visited someone who I was selling different components to, and they had a piece of equipment they wanted to get rid of. I had visited someone else the day before who was looking for the same thing. I didn’t have to be that bright to understand that this guy wanted a dollar, and this guy was willing to pay two dollars. That worked out pretty well, and I did that a few times. But then the next time I did it, the person said, “You need to take it out.” So, I was able to; there was a group of guys and my office, at that time, was right behind Holcroft in Livonia. I got to know a lot of guys that worked there, and they would come and work for me on weekends. We would dismantle, move things, and ship them out.

Eventually, I got a little shop. I hired a fellow, whose name is Charlie Hatala, who now has Great Lakes Industrial Furnace. Charlie ran the shop, and then we started refurbishing equipment.

Then, in 1978 or 1979, BorgWarner Corporation in Michigan asked me if I could build a tempering furnace. I was doing maintenance for them installing components. I did a lot of brazing and sintering furnaces and some batch furnaces. They needed to do temper. I said yes, having never done it before.

Eventually, we figured it out.

I hired an engineer who worked for us part time for a while, and the shop became a busier situation. We started to build some equipment.

I hired an engineer, a fellow by the name of Don LaFore, who has now passed away. Don came in and helped shepherd us along to do design work. We started to build some belt-type furnaces for sintering and brazing. There were other people in the industry who had small operations to do refractory work or do electrical. We leaned on those individuals and started to build.

By 1980, I had two guys in engineering, Dave in sales, Carol in the office, and my wife, Eileen, was our CFO, as she still is today. It just went from there!

By 1983, we moved to another larger building.

In 1989 we moved again, and then in 2000, we moved to an even larger facility.

So, we had gone from about $700k–$800k to about $25 million in my last couple of years. In fact, we have equipment we built in the Ukraine for which my son, Matt, did the startup. We just looked at it in satellite, and it’s still standing and hasn’t blown up yet. That particular system, we duplicated twice for Russia.

Becker Goes International (14:16)

We built equipment in Israel, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and China. Korea was the first place, out of the country, where I sold a piece of equipment. That was right at the beginning, probably in the later part of the 1970’s, maybe very early 1980’s.

At Ford Motor Company, there was a research scientist; he was a Korean doctor. He  had gone back to Korea to head a thing called KIMM (Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials) and he called me and ordered a furnace. We built the furnace, a research-type sintering furnace and endo generator, and I actually went to Korea and did the startup. That was one of the first international ones. We’ve shipped equipment to Canada, to Mexico, and to quite a few different places.

At 68 years old, in 2011, I sold the company to Gasbarre.

 Becker’s Network in the Heat Treating Industry (16:02)

Doug Glenn: Give us a recap of some of the people with whom you’ve interacted.

John Becker: There was a startup company in around 1970/71 called Custom Electric Furnace, where Tim Mousseau worked as an engineer. Charlie Hatala was basically the president and shop manager. They had all come from a company called Alexander Engineering which goes way, way back.

I started repping them, and I sold a few furnaces for them.

Another guy that was repping around there was Jeff Smith; he worked for the which represented a company out of New York that made heat exchangers. Jeff came up with the idea of making his own heat exchangers, and that’s when they started SBS Corp.

During that same time period, I became friends with John Young. John’s father had Perfection Heat Treating Company, and his father, unexpectedly, died just before Christmas around 1976, I believe. John and I became friends. His wife’s name was Eileen, and my wife’s name was Eileen. We both had degrees in metallurgy; our backgrounds were very parallel to one another.

John and I ended up buying the heat treating company called Steel Improvement Company, and John ran that company successfully for about 10 years. Also, John and I got in on a few other companies too.

1984 and 1985 hurt the heat treat industry in Detroit, so we ended up liquidating both those companies.

Just like Jeff Smith, people from, refractory people, we interfaced with so many people here. In the metropolitan Detroit area, you have everything you can think of: Electrical supplies, wire, refractory, engineering help, machining, fabricating, steel suppliers. Everything is right at our fingertips. You have a real cornucopia of support-type people from lawyers to accountants to medical to whatever. It was a good place to nurture a company.

Like I said, we built the company up, and I was really motivated to sell.

In 2009, my oldest boy died. That hurt me personally, obviously. Then, in 2010, my younger son, Matt, who’s kind of a Mensa kid, announced he was going to leave to open a brewery. He has been extremely successful.

Then, Gasbarre approached me. My thoughts of passing the business on to my sons were trash, so I sold the company. After I sold it I consulted with them for a couple years; it was all part of the contract. I realized I really didn’t want to get out of it; I had pulled the trigger a little too quickly.

I’m 79, and I still work almost every day. I love the business, and I’ve come to know so many people in the business that I interface with. I’ve had some very, very strong supporters over the years for the equipment that we’ve built.

One guy that was probably the nicest guy — you couldn’t have asked for a better friend — was Jim Hendershot who had Carolina Commercial Heat Treat. Jim sold it to Gibraltar and on and on. Now, most of their plants are part of Bodycote.

John’s Supporters (22:32)

Doug Glenn: Are there two or three people who had a significant impact, people that encouraged you to carry on?

John Becker: You know, I really can’t point to anybody individually. Obviously, my wife was a supporter. She was burdened with the accounting side of the business.

I had a lot of different people. There was a buyer at Ford who was very supportive. Another guy at AC Spark Plug up in Flint; I did a lot of work for them and built several pieces of equipment. So, it was more people believing in me and believing that I could do the job and giving me the opportunity to do it.

My best friend just passed away a week ago (he was a Ford dealer). He would listen to me all the time and give me advice. He had built up a company where he was the number one Ford dealer for 1921 and 1922 in volume, worldwide, in the small little town of Livonia. It was very prestigious. He was a very well-liked individual. He gave me a lot of advice about not trying to micromanage, about giving up control and giving control to other people, hiring people and trusting them to let them do their job, and how to treat individuals. I think I learned a lot from that.

John’s Significant Accomplishments (25:20)

Doug Glenn: What are one or two your significant accomplishments?

John Becker: Dave Peterson worked with a company (and I won’t mention their name), and I joined him. This company had bought a used piece of equipment and did some converting on it to do a process. They had built one, and then we built their next one and “upgraded” it to the next phase.

We worked on the design and built and built and built it to where they had about 50 of these units. I think, between myself and Gasbarre, there may be 55 of them built. If you look at it, it’s roughly a million dollars apiece; they were very successful. They were using my son, Matt, who developed the software and automated all the controls to mass flow sensors, etc. This was early on before a lot of things that we have today. If you look back, this was all new technology at the time.

That was a “feather in our cap,” and that was a whole team. The engineering department did the engineering, the shop and the people in fabricating all had ideas and those were incorporated into it, and Matt redeveloped the software and the controls and developed all the programming. Before they had a lot of mechanical and timing issues where a bell would ring and an operator would have to do something, this was all automated. It took the operator out of what was a 30, 40, 50-hour process.

It’s very successful. That shows how the whole group pulled together and did it.

My success has been talking. Sales. I’ve been able to connect with people. I’m tenacious like a bulldog on an ankle; it’s hard to get me off. My middle initial is “L” and I tell everybody it’s for “Lucky.” I’ve been very fortunate to have a very loyal group of individuals. Like, we’re here now at Heat Treat Equipment. Bill Richardson started me in 1980 and was chief engineer and is with me now. Dave Peterson was my sales manager since 1976/77 and is with me now. The people in our shop, I did not solicit them. They came to me. When I had J.L. Becker, they were the ones that made the clock work.

I would go out, do the sales, contribute to them, and try to close the deal. I had more people — we had four or five gals, plus the CPA, plus my wife in the office, for insurance, employee benefits, payroll, paying the bills, etc. That worked very well, but that wasn’t my department. I looked at it macro work, but the micro work was done by all of them. They were very organized. The same was true for the shop and in engineering.

I really have to say they’re the ones that made the business keep moving. I would come in and say, “I’ve sold another standard piece of equipment except everything is different.”

Lessons Learned (30:43)

Doug Glenn: Over your work career, were there any disciplines that you developed? Were there any disciplines you developed you felt were beneficial for you and for your company?

John Becker: I can’t think of anything specifically. They always say, “Never quit. Never take ‘no’ for an answer.” So, I never quit. I used to tease some of the other guys because they would call on a customer for years, literally 4–10 years, and nothing would happen. Then, there was that lucky change in personnel. All of sudden, everything started to happen. We became “their guys.”

I was tenacious, and I listened. I do a lot of talking, but people don’t realize I do listen. Understanding, in sales, what does your customer want, what’s the expectation? I’m not going to pick on any other company, but some, more or less, “fell from the catalog.”

I always thought we were willing to change to try to modify or make our equipment fit our customer’s needs, not our customer needs fitting our equipment. We always went in and would change things. As I said, “Another standard piece except everything is different!”

I know when I sold the company, Gasbarre enjoyed quite a bit of repeat business from our customer base. I think our customer base was loyal; the loyalty came back from being loyal to them. We, like everyone else, had problems. My point was: We need to fix the problem, not fix blame. We didn’t worry about the cost. When it was done and resolved, then we could go back and look at it to find out if the problem arose from something we did, was it improper usage, etc.?

We never walked away from a problem and trust me, I had them over the years.

Doug Glenn: Did you ever lose any big money on them?

John Becker: Yes. More than once, and we lived to tell about it! The problem was sometimes I was quick on the draw. A guy that draws fast can shoot his foot off. The gun goes off a little too quick. Every time I would try to jam a square peg into a round hole — like I said, I was tenacious. I would fight and fight and fight for an order and get it and get creamed.

Work-Life Balance (34:55)

Doug Glenn: How did you handle work-life balance?

John Becker: It was never a struggle. I worked 6 days a week; when the kids were growing up, I coached baseball. I had a soccer team I coached in Northville for both my boys. We loved Florida because my grandparents were down there. My mother’s parents were down there, and my parents moved there. I had a brother and sister that lived there, etc.

We started going down to Florida very early in our lives in the 1970’s. We took vacations with the boys. There are plays and things they did at school; we did all that. We had a pretty good life.

Over the years, I’ve developed a lack of memory. When I walk out the door of work, my memory just falls off somewhere. I’m driving home and when I get home, I can’ remember things. Even though Eileen was involved in the business, I didn’t go home and talk about the business. I left it at work.

[blockquote author="" style="1"]One thing I’ve learned is that the work you didn’t do today will be there tomorrow. The work will be there.[/blockquote]One thing I’ve learned is that the work you didn’t do today will be there tomorrow. The work will be there. Early on, I did a few things. I missed a funeral for a friend that I still look back at, 30 years later, and say, “I could’ve cancelled or rescheduled those appointments, and I could’ve gone there.” I still think I should have gone to the funeral, and I didn’t and I’m sorry, today. The appointments that I went to never turned out to be anything.

I’ve always carried that around, that I should have been there for that person even though they had passed. You make decisions, and I think you’ve got to remember that a lot of these things will be there tomorrow that you don’t get to today.

Advice to Young Leaders in the Industry (37:48)

Doug Glenn: Were there one or two lessons you learned along the way, words of wisdom you would give?

John Becker: Send your resumes out somewhere else? Find a different career! I don’t mean that; the industry has been good to me.

I think that one of the things for younger people, especially in sales, is this: I would go work on a sale and I would think, “Boy, I’ve got this thing,” and find out I lost to a competitor, not realizing the purchasing guy’s brother-in-law was my competitor. So, understanding the politics of situations, the relationships. I’ve had people that I’ve been very, very close to and they would go out for bids, but I knew I was getting the work. Get to understand the relationship, who they’ve worked with in the past.

The other thing I think is important is technical society. I belong to ASM (ASM International, formerly known as the American Society for Metals). I used to belong to MPIF (Metal Powder Industries Foundation), the APMI (American Powder Metallurgy Institute).

I was one of the original associate members of  MTI (Metal Treating Institute), but actually I was an MTI member back in the 70’s because we (John Young and I) owned the heat treat shop. John was the member, and I was the alternate. They were very, very down on a salesperson, like me, coming to those types of meetings. I did go to a couple. In fact, the very first or second meeting that Lance ever had, I met a guy who was from out in Oklahoma, by the name of John Hubbard. That was back in, probably, 1980, roughly, ’81 maybe; it was in that time.

Doug Glenn: So, for those who are listening that might not know, Lance Miller was the executive director of the Metal Treating Institute (not anymore, Tom Morrison is currently in that position). John Hubbard ended up being the CEO of Bodycote for years and years.

John Becker: I think in establishing relationships, try to be as honest as you can with your customers. There is a certain point that, I think, to maybe be a little guarded in your answers. Be as honest as you can without giving away your company secrets or whatever. Say you’ve had something in the background in your company that’s gone on and it’s affecting something. You don’t need to broadcast that, but you should maybe tell your customers you’ve had some issues that are going to delay or change things. That’s the best thing.

Just be yourself; don’t try to be somebody else. And you know what, if you don’t come home laughing and having a good time and enjoying yourself, you’re in the wrong business.

 

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