Family Voices

Family Member: Fredrick Marcellus Green

Descendent of: Sarah Jane Wadsworth

Date: Saturday, July 21, 2018

Place: San Francisco CA

Scott Wadsworth and Harriet Young had twelve kids of which one was Sarah Jane. Sarah married Augustus Green, who had four children and one was Frederick Douglas Green. He married Mary Rankin. The Greens are cousins two ways - Green's and Rankin's. Fred & Mary had four boys of which one was my father, Arthur Green.

I wanted to be an engineer, but the schools in Alabama were segregated so I could not attend the University of Alabama or the University of Auburn. I moved to St Paul, MN to attend the University of MN. St. Paul was the home of two major railroad companies that ran from Chicago to Seattle. I had worked as a dining car waiter during the summers when I was in high school so I knew I would be able to work and attend school if I moved to the Twin Cities.

I got a job at 3M company as a lab technician in the Central Research Pilot Plant. We had the job of figuring how to manufacture products that the chemist had developed. 3M was supportive of their employees completing their education, which meant I could go to school in the morning and work in the afternoon from 1-9pm.

It took me five years to get my degree in Mechanical Engineering. During the last half of my senior year I started interviewing within 3M for other positions. After what seemed like never ending interviews, I noticed I had not seen any African Americans at the company. I asked my boss what was the company's position on hiring Affirmative Action. He said he did not know, which let me know that 3M did not have one.

Page 2

A few weeks later I was told to go see the Corporate VP of Human Resources. I made my way to the corporate headquarters and to the executive floor to meet the VP. He wanted to know why I was raising questions about affirmative action. I told him about my experience interviewing and I was concerned about my future employment at 3M. The next week I got an interview schedule that took me to Chicago and Texas where 3M had large plants that employed black people.

After this experience I felt I should interview outside of 3M. I took a job at Honeywell as a manufacturing engineer. I was always interested in manufacturing management and had taken all of my elective courses in management. Honeywell had a very formal system and it would have taken me 10 to 15 years to get into management. I moved to Control Data which was growing very fast and promotions could come quickly to those with potential.

While at Control Data, I started an MBA program at St Thomas University in St. Paul. We had to write a business plan and present it to the instructor and the class. I wrote a plan for a Data Processing Company. After the presentation the instructor said he thought it was good and he knew of someone who might be interested in investing. I partnered with a friend and we made the pitch to the investor. He was interested and so we started Dynamic Data Services. We worked in the business at night and kept our day jobs. 

The business was selling data processing resources (keypunching, key to tape and to key disk) to large companies that had peak times and needed assistance. Month end closing for companies and banks. We started by using the equipment of a school that provided data entry training. We used the equipment at night when classes were not being held. The business grew rapidly and we got our own building and 

Page 3

equipment. I resigned from Control Data to work in the business full time. After a year or so, my partner and I had a falling out because I thought I was doing more than my share.  We had a small board of directors that was made up of the investor and a couple of other members. I thought it was apparent and the board knew who made the company function - me! My partner had been working the board so when the showdown came, they picked him to run the business. I was out of the business and out of a job.

I learned the first of four very important lessons that have guided me throughout my career.  

Lesson #1: Never underestimate the competition.

An opening to run a plant at Control Data became available during this period. I interviewed and with the assistance of some friends I had in the company, I was offered the job. I ran this particular plant for 3 years. During this time, I got a call from an African American gentleman, named Luther Prince, whose company manufactured power supplies. He was an MIT trained brilliant electrical engineer. He said he was looking for someone to join his company and my name kept coming up. I met him and after some discussion I told him that I was happy with my career at Control Data.

Shortly after this meeting I was sent to Los Angeles for about a year to turn around a plant. Shortly after I returned to the Twin Cities a job running Control Data's Government Division became available. This was a $300M business. The job came down to two people, me and the guy whose mess I had to clean up in LA. Of course, you know who got the job, he did!

Page 4

Control Data was not ready to give this level of responsibility to a black man. A short time after the decision was announced I got a call from Luther Prince again. He wanted to know what it would take for me to join his company. I told him I wanted some ownership. He said that was not an issue. I left Control Data. And wouldn't you know, a couple of weeks after they offered the job to the "other guy", I get a call and was told they had made a mistake and wanted me to consider taking the position.

The company I joined was Ault Incorporated. 

Lesson #2: Ownership is usually better than a salary.

As I said, Luther Prince, was the owner of Ault. Luther had developed the concept of external power supplies which means moving the power to the outside of the device you are powering. Your portable computer is an example of this concept. Basically, it is your power cord that you plug into the wall. 

Luther and I worked for a couple of months laying out a new business plan then started to execute. 

When I joined the company, it had sales of $3M dollars a year. Within a couple of years, we had grown the business to $10M. We got a contract to power the IBM PC and the Texas Instrument 994. These two contracts took us to over $18M. Luther and I decided to take the company public on the NASDAQ. There have been only a couple of black owned companies listed on the NASDAQ.

Both the Texas Instrument  and the IBM computers did not do well in the marketplace and we loss the business.  Luther and I had different 

Page 5

visions of what to do. He wanted to shrink the business back to very small, I felt that we had built all of this infrastructure and we should grow.

Remembering what happened to me in my first business, I made sure that the board understood what I wanted to do. They chose my options. Luther was very angry and he sold his stock in the company and left.

I took the business to the telecom industry where we had success and started to grow again. After a couple of years, I started to get calls from customers in Silicon Valley saying they could buy products in Asia for 1/2 of what we were charging.

Lesson #3: When you see things changing, get out in front of it and manage it!

I made a trip to Asia so I could understand what was happening. After that trip it was clear to me that we could not beat their prices so we started an Ault Korea. After some years we started a business in China. And, to hedge my bets, we also started a plant in Thailand at the same time as the business expanded to China.

During this time the telecom industry exploded and the company grew to about $90M and close to 1000 employees. We did engineering, sales and short run manufacturing out of Minneapolis. After about 5-6 years the telecom industry collapsed and the company fell to a $50M. Again, we got out in front of the change and moved the company to the medical device market and began to rebuild.

Page 6

When the business was down other companies approached us about selling. After evaluating offers, we decided to sell. 

Lesson #4: Know when to hold em', know when to fold em', and take your money off the table!

We had a 35-year run, 25 of which I was with the company and in charge of 20 of those years.