Mississippi Masters; Hartley & Melia Peavey: To Build a Dream

I want to do something to try and help make the world a better place. PV is about growing PV is about growth. PV is about challenging the the the conventional wisdom. The only way we're going to do that is is with people people have to do that. Honestly if you look at the theory the theory says that a company like PV could never be. But I can assure you it is and hopefully will continue to be. And I don't think that we can do that unless we are educated unless we do have some work ethics in home life and all of those things just toss so much in together. PV is I speak of it as something separate but in many ways it's me it's what I am it's a reflection of me. I am. This Mississippi masters profile is made possible in part by a grant from the Phil

Hartman foundation of Meridian dedicated to improving education for Mississippians. And we will provide you an opportunity to apply what you think and work smart. Now we should continue to have that. Wonderful math of me. Say things. That they. Did. I'm not saying. I'm saying. I've always been somewhat of a rebel. I'm one of those kind of people that if you tell me I can't do something I got to do it. With paint. I've got to. Put my. Thumb on it. I walk up to a door that says cool you know what I'm going to do. And. Maybe On the contrary and maybe I'm a rebel. Whatever I I just am one of those people that is always. You know. Kind of march to a different bro. Growing up in Meridian Mississippi is the elder son of J.B. And Sara people hardly began beating that Different Drum at an early age.

And I see her as me to be here played with the kids. He said you know my stuff sounds messy. He says only proud of me since some time said before 1:30 I'm going to be married you know. I started going to Ross Collins which is the local trade school vocational school. Call it what you will. I started going there in the summer the sixth grade. I took that first summer I took machine shop and basic electrical city. And I learned how to rewind Motors how to run laser milling machines banned solids. I ended up taking a sheet metal shop mechanical drawing. I force a message machine shop I could virtually make anything I wanted to make. The thought then and probably now as well as anybody that works with a hand somehow as a second class citizen and I I never subscribe to that because I'm good with my hands. That's my talent I can I can build things I didn't have any money I couldn't afford to buy the things I wanted like a stereo set

or or a guitar or some of those things. So I don't have a building. Going to a concert down in Laurel Mississippi I belong to a high school fraternity call the capital Omega and they had a laurel bunch had had Bo Didley down there who was a big rock star at that point time so I went down there and I decide at that point I did want to play in that band anymore I wanted to I want to play guitar. And of course I went to my day and tell him I want to be a gamp And as you might imagine the answer was no so I ended up you know getting the junk parts out of old TVs and out of the box and I

built a piece of an amplifier and it worked halfway. But that was really the start of of what I guess is now Peavey electronics. If I had gone and bought him a thousand dollar outfit what would have happened. I just believe he had a pic donate a few days may have been the end of it but he you know he wanted to amplify and I wouldn't give it to him so he thought. AFAIK he decided to make one. And I believe that's why he made. That necessity. I'm quite sure that if I were to have listened to my heart and not my head I would have tried to be a musician. And have been I would been an utter failure because that's not my style. But I love music I love musicians so there came a day actually a junior college where I had to look in the mirror and say OK what are you good at what can you do. You'll never be a rock n roll player. What can you do. That will

involve. What your abilities are i.e. building things but yet at the same time allow you to interface with musicians and participate in the music industry. So at that time I decided that the only thing that I could do and seem to do well and enjoy it was building musical equipment. After graduating from Mississippi State University in 1965 Hartley started his business electronics. My dad sold his business and 960 to a company called Mississippi music but my they had retained the building that his old music store was and he had a he had an attic room upstairs over the music store. I went in there and we for of that place that was my that was my first quote quote factory a one room place with me. And then in 1968 built the first little factory. Of some land. I don't have a knew it was me doing the electronics. I had two guys

covering cabinets and. Installing speakers and putting product in shipping cartons and Holly had a cutlass. Would you use it to go to the station he found rather than bought along. So. Loudly he's probably got you know we had a van now favor electronics and so on we had one final similar line in that building at the time and everything that we built came down that lacked a lot of people think that we really got our start in guitar amplifiers which is technically true. We did start with guitar amplifiers but we really broke into the marketplace with our sound systems. Our first P.A. system was not a terrific success the second one though really took off really. It it really put us on the map because we would go in music shops throughout the southeast and try to sell him another guitar at the fire we were just another face in the crowd. But when we took in this sound system they said wow yeah come on in

and that's really what got us got us in the dough. And every piece of equipment that went through those doors bore the distinctive Peavey logo. I used to sit for hours while I should have been listening to the teacher drawing pictures of guitars or logos or whatever I came up with a very angular logo. Some people refer to it as the lightning bolt logo. A lot of times I'll go and check in the hotel. All over the USA that is all over the world and people don't know who I am but they'll see that. I deal my oh my suitcases and it's like oh PV Yeah my son has one of those or I have a I have a Peavey amplifier are you so say you with that cup and I say yeah kind of. In 1972 a young man Liam McRae was hired Peavey but her plans were to stay for only one year.

Coming out of Hans go I had a scholarship and I was going to double my German sociology and psychology. And I knew that I was going to need some money to be able to live on it some time. So I was going to work for a year. Those were my points and then go back to school. But I just I felt like this wonderful thing was going to happen with this company. I mean I was a 17 year old out of high school so that did not know an amplifier from a microphone. I'm pretty much OK. And I was fascinated with how things were put together and how things were money. I walked in one day and there was this lady sitting with long hair. I don't know who she was. And I asked one of the other ladies I said Who is that. And says Well that's that's that's Malia. So I said Well welcome aboard and she says hi welcome aboard who you hardly PV.

Actually I think they hired a while I was out of town for some race not by a bit of a business trip or something I came in there she was and I really didn't have much interface with her but. To be honest with you I don't like her. I thought she was kind of a smart alec and I later found out she confided other people she had the same impression of me. My first job was to handle the switchboard which was a black telephone with the red hole but in the four or five lines we go now for two incoming Monsour really I had two lines to answer. After five years of working together hardly in my early years relationship began to change both of their first marriages had ended in divorce and they realize that first impressions don't always last. They were married in 1977. We had developed after several years of mutual respect we copped to one another. Parties in dollars cost often we just shared a lot of interests in common and after

after our divorces we kind of got together and we've been together. Ever since. I wasn't surprised actually because when I found out they were going to get married they had things so much in law and so happy and nice thing to work well together that complemented each other tremendously. Harlene I'm Mike I really could one person. I'm not at all sure about either one of us on our own. I can't design a farm and a home. And. Hartley's the best I've ever seen of it. We've been very good for me because she's she's been my life. Partner of mine. My best friend said it's been a. It's been a very symbiotic relationship symbiotic meaning. That. The sum is greater than the sum of the parts. I'm good at the thing she's not good at and vice versa.

I hate figures I hate ballot sheets I hate. Dealing with all that stuff. And she hates mechanical things she hates you know the the job of being a salesman and that and that's what I'm good at it's been a it's been a like I said it's a very complimentary thing and I don't say that from time to time we don't have some butting of heads because she's very headstrong and and she says not accurately of course that I'm headstrong about the way you're. Trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's. If interested I dress up something. I guess I'm trying. Ladies gentlemen. Success for PV was never guaranteed in order to compete with the established names in the music industry hardly relied on hard work long hours and he was contrary in nature to find a better way to make musical equipment.

When the sound that is were in the music business were in the entertainment business and we focused on that and we've made our career bought by by being different. Now so many people want to succeed by doing the same thing. AS. Everybody else. But our goal early on was to be the best. And I believe that by definition. You cannot be the best. Unless you're willing to be different. Therefore PV is different. It's got the freedom to allow you to become whatever it is that you want to be and some some room to move. There's not a lot of constraints for a lot of borders or boundaries to there to the job around here. It's still everybody on a first name basis and if anybody said trying to color the family environment but it really is you know and from the beginning PV has hired employees who could flourish in this unique environment.

It did not matter who you were it did not matter what color you were a did not matter if you were male or female it didn't matter if you had long hair short hair. The main Harley took a lot of a lot of bad wraps for that. My first supervisory job was in circuit board process where we take the blank copper clad. Just fiberglass material and we make circuit boards out of. And from there I went in to. Supervise in a final assembly line. We had lots of. Women supervisors at that time but I was the first. Woman supervisor in final assembly responsible for actually putting dollars finished product into the warehouse which I felt was I felt a lot of pride in it. A lot of responsibility to it because we're talking. I guess that happened in maybe nine hundred eighty that I went to final assembly as a super fancy TV is all about growth I'm fond of saying that that

PV is a company that doesn't just build things we build people. We're all about education. So many of our people frankly would have never been given a chance in a conventional corporate environment. Malaya. My wife is a prime example I'm a prime example I would never make it in the corporate world. Malaya has never been and she's never had one day a college but she's one smartest people I've ever met. She is unbelievably talented and. So many of our other people around here fit into that category. If you saw their resume you say well there's no way they could do that job but in fact they are doing the job and they're doing a great job. They're doing a world class job. We're not locked into this corporate kind of thing it's OK. Per Sandin idea that's crazy and not being intimidated by or think that you're going to be laughed at. It's OK to look outside of that wall and

go OK why don't we try this or try that. One of the most significant differences in PV has been their innovative use of computers in manufacturing musical instruments. Hartley set out to find a better way to build guitars. He found the answer in his gun collection. And I've always been amazed at how a gun stock or rifle. Fits the metals so precisely in many case you can't take a sheet of paper and put between it. Those things are mass produced and I said well you know whatever machine is used to make those good stocks. I could make guitar necks that way. I could make them in mass. I could make them very good very precise at much less cost. And I went to some German companies and that that actually made the machines that made the gun stocks in here. Can you make this. And they said well we've never done it but yeah we think so. So we started making guitar necks on what's called the copy life with the first company in

the world ever did that. Of course my competitors all said Well that can't be done it can't be done you. Everybody knows you can't make cars with computers. Well we weren't making guitars with computers but in fact we were making guitar parts which were assembled you know with human hands. We've gotten involved in a total cradle to grave kind of computer integrated manufacturing. So this thing we call Sam computer integrated manufacturing is we use computers to process the orders to generate the production orders to the shop for two to actually give instructions to the machines through to a material requirement planning our MRP process where we order the

parts the entire our design production. Manufacturing shipping process is all controlled. You know by computer. We are we are one of the pioneers and in the southeast bank and we've gone through a number of seminars. To. Help people know how. With the advancement of computer technology came the higher demand for employee training. The PV philosophy became if you don't know you can't grow. Programs were put into place that offered every employee a chance to progress within the company limited only by their incentive to learn. I think that is the one. The one central philosophy that really turns me on about this company and Hartley in the year has certainly given

so many people the opportunity to grow themselves. It's a continuing development and I certainly had the opportunity to learn so much. There's a tremendous education opportunity here both. Internally and externally internally through programs that the company offers the employees externally through the programs that again employees are offered through the local community college in the Mississippi State branch and and in education opportunities for our dealers and consumers and distributors that are that are not not here you know that are in other parts of the U.S. and in other parts of the world. So the company is extremely education oriented a lot of people talk about their companies having education programs and yes were were an education driven company but this is the real deal here. I took basically my out I took algebra beginning out you bro and I loved it. And then I took a course in communications.

Not a lot that most of the classes that I've taken were related to be electronic saw the management or product related classes. Surprise safety related classes over the years I've taken several courses that are company. Sponsored companies paid for and. Always has been that way here. I have gone off to. Other seminars and activities around the country. We have for many many years I started probably 16 17 years ago. A program that if an employee wanted to go to college we as long as we would have to prove the courses first because we wanted to make sure that it was something that would benefit the company. In other words we can afford to pay for somebody that wants to be a doctor.

But as diverse as we are it's really hard unless it's a veterinarian or something like that. It's really hard to fund something that we want to prove and we pay for 100 percent of the classes. As long as you maintain a C average we will also pay for your books. It's on a sliding scale it's 100 percent if you make a. I think it drops stand to 80 percent if you might be and 50 percent if you might see something along those lines. The support came from my supervisors really and they were all supportive of you know me taking classes and get the paperwork through for us to be reimbursed but when it came time for the actual interviews and the monies and the opportunities that came along I was really impressed with how. Supportive they were changing departments that somebody and really you know was going to say that as recognition of their employees progress the peace award ceremony every year

for continuing education. It's a program you started to recognize. Take basic training courses that are not for people like. You. Every day in the human resources department where you can employ themselves to Sept bigger and better responsibilities within the company to be promoted to more challenging. And it really places us speaking for the resources department to see that this is exactly what all of you on this room are doing right. We ask you to keep up the good work now because you started the pace.

I noticed on the list. Most of these people have been here the last two. Started out in 1994. Forty eight hundred two in 1995. This year there's a hundred twenty six. So that ten years to grow and that tells people that it's important to them because they're giving of their time. And it also tells them that. Bettering themselves and therefore have the option to go for a better job. But here in the USA we have. A chance at here at PV you have an opportunity. To see what you can do to grow. Now every one of us is born with different talents different abilities and everyone of us has different you know level of love. Of what we want to what we want to do with our sales I want to be the best I can be. But with Personally I want the company to be the best that it can be. But folks the only way for the

company to be the best they can be is for our folks to be the best they can be and that all starts with what Zig Ziglar says. You can't grow if you don't know. So you people I congratulate you. I'm proud of you but please please we beg you don't let it stop here with all of the educational programs available to PV employees. One which has contributed significantly to the growth of the company is J cept the job skills education program. But we were really embarking on the home digital technologies keyboards and things that we had never built before. All leading edge very cutting edge for anywhere in the world and the expertise just did not exist readily in Mississippi. And that's not just that didn't exist in Mississippi it didn't exist in most states.

So we didn't know what else we were going to do except to have to move. Those product lines when I hear it when we were ready to manufacture them somewhere else to where there was the skilled labor. Because we were looking at a market that the products span might be six months if you were lucky. So you didn't have you didn't have the luxury of shining people when you're going to have to turn around in six months shut down a production line to start something entirely new all over. It was Julie maybe's the wife of former Mississippi governor Ray Mavis who helped Malea find a computer based training program which was originally designed for the military. We had to take it and instead of teaching what to do in a situation when you see a mine or a bomb and how to defuse it and all those things we had to say here is a router sitting here and it's going to cut out pieces of plywood or particle board to make speaker cabinets or do whatever. You know.

Here's how you run. And so we did that we took it we did a crane that it was a very very long process of very expensive process. So you know we're going to. Take every one of these. And go over them the saturnine. They are each one of their. Problems. And when it is so unique in what is still so unique that Josep is that an employee can decide what job it is that they want to learn how to do it and they can go out to the lab and say this is the job that I want to learn to do. And then I can sit down and working with the instructor and working with the computers and that program for what job whatever job is if they want to learn they can sit and go through that and learn it. It's incredible and you know we won the top awards in the United States for one such award came in 1992 when

hardly and Maliyah were presented the National Literacy honors award from President and Mrs. Bush. PV electronics was the first corporation in the country to ever receive this award. Heartland really FTD in creating a program to improve employees skills in a highly technical workplace. You have used the soundest of business practices to increase the productivity of your workers and the quality of their work. You have given them chances they might never have had for advancement and personal growth for your continuing commitment to a model of how a business can meet workers needs and keep America competitive in the world marketplace. We are happy to recognize your exemplary accomplishments. You get the book. And you get thank these educational efforts do not end with their employees.

Hartley realized early on that a music dealer will sell the product he knows the most about our dealers structure is totally different most of my competitors virtually sale anybody and everybody we have a very small number of dealers out of but not 10000 music dealers in the United States let's say will they sell thirteen hundred oh so less than one. Oh just a little bit more than one in 10 dealers is a Peavey dealer. The great majority of music and sound dealers are not people dealers the interesting poll that we can sell more through a smaller Butler structure. Again that's a convolution of conventional wisdom. But again whoever said we were conventional. At least twice a month for a week each time so a total of only averaged two weeks out of the month we have anywhere from 40 to one hundred forty dealers distributors or consumers here at the factory learning about all kinds of things and we train them and we send him out in the field to train other people so you get this this

this learning or this education snowball effect that's really cool it works you have a trial for the self is is a departure for him because. Not only does it look from this that you cannot you can take the neck off and screw the true price point out you know one of the great advantages to this is if you've got a necklace that go to the drugs right through pull it out through the front row over put it back you know like you know Polo back over your career. So it's truly a two way trust right. Now. You were yet right. Oh yes please get in the industry because we want to reply Oh yes every word that we want to reply. Vehicle so that the end user the musician. Yeah you're wrong. Oh yeah. We are not in the music business unless we are really really.

We have the only. Regularly scheduled dealer training dealing personnel training system here in the in the industry. One of the big problems that all retailers have is turnover their personnel. You have a trained person he or she leaves and no untrained person comes San and the whole vicious cycle starts over again they need training. If you're a young man you're a young woman and you decide that you want to go into the music and sound business where do you go to get your basic training. In fact the matter is there's only one place to go in the whole United States and that's preview electronics court down in Mississippi. Another way PV electronics reaches out to its dealers and distributors is through trade shows. The largest show in the United States is held in California every year and is sponsored by NAB. The National Association of Music Merchants. If you. Look around this booth you can see people all over Europe say people from. Africa. South America the best dictators and Haiti and takers Mexican

dealers distributors everywhere. Actually we did this in a hundred in three different countries around the world. This is one of the ways we show in our latest writings where every year we introduce won't work with you right. It's absolutely necessary that we have hope for those products to the market. That's why. Dealers get an exclusive preview of those new products at the Phoebe pre-show extravaganza. Products like the Wolfgang guitar developed with endorser Eddie Van Halen. I was really looking for an American company to develop products with

me. And PV is about the only American company that's self-contained and very very family oriented. I mean I'm just. I can't say. Enough good things about Hartley Emelie you know the things they do for a literacy you know and they send people to college and pay for it you know to me and. I don't know it's just really they have they they bus people in they bust dealers in to to hit them to their latest innovations to teach them how to show their customers you know how to how to work the stuff. And it just really seemed like a company where I felt right at home. You know there are very few companies that do anything of that sort. I mean they have a whole complex in Meridian just for that just to teach dealers how to accurately show the dealers how to sell the product.

I've never had to work with. This guy we did not tell the difference between what I would write solemn for a shower that didn't do it last week. That's a high percentage of it goes on the the primary thing that we're looking for in a in an artist company relationship is that it is the engineering input. If if an artist at the professional level comes in and says you should make this speaker cabinet sound like this or you should make this guitar player like this or this microphone sound like this. If they're at the top of their profession they're in a pretty good position to offer some some pretty solid input. So if we listen to that input apply it to our product and then introduce that product. It's that's typically a pretty safe formula. GM did it myself. But it's. Really just playing what if. No no no no.

He was always looking for ways to improve their workforce. PV Electronics has become involved in a program called Learn to work high school teachers are brought into PV to get a better understanding of manufacturing so that they can help prepare their students for the workplace. Dr. Sandra Harpo's Mississippi State University conceived the idea after attending a conference at which Malaya was the keynote speaker. Mostly it was talking about source for commitment to education and I was very impressed with how much she was already doing to education. I think she said that there's a real problem in the teacher's death. Now you know in general what goes south is manufacturing. Day to eat but I have no idea about what actually happens and I thought you know that's the way I was when I was a high school teacher. My students ask me give me an example of a way to see cheese.

I could not always give them an example and write. Probably not in the example that the Mississippi or that our local area. We received the 2 million dollar grant in Washington less than a year ago. From the National Science Foundation for bringing the teachers union and industry and teaching them what we need. It's now my very distinct pleasure to. At least symbolically go to the bottom line. And that's money. That I would like to present to present Zacharias is Peavy the P.I. press a heartful and Raph. There is only one copy of this. I am. A letter of the official letter from the grants and contracts office of the foundation stipulating our commitment

for in excess of a million dollars to this very very important venture over the next four years. Thank you very much. Graduates. Right here. Thank you. The problem we have in American education is that the typical elementary secondary Seaquest in this great connection to the workforce. So for the 80 percent of high school graduates who don't go to post-secondary education they really. Experience a huge deficit between what the preparation should be and what the workforce requires and we must in fact use business in the field. This group of teachers will prepare the materials that would be presented. As a workshop to 48 teachers over each of the next three summers. Now what their responsibility is to come in to look at all the various applications. Too many industries not just the electronics industry but because such a unique industry

that produces over 90 percent of the materials that they use in their products are coming in and they're identifying various scales various educational backgrounds various industries within this one industry that can then use back in their local area. The end result is for us to take some of this information we've seen and create models for hands on to our students in our classrooms. So the students will not only learn the concepts which in my case physics concepts but will also learn applications to these concepts how they can apply the same skills into future jobs and even though there is not PV electronics everywhere in the nation. Things like carpentry Metal Works electronics all these things are skills that are available in most areas. Computer skills you see computer skills over and over time even though your situation. If I have.

Been there. Is. Based on. Physics that way and there's a math person at. He was just. A. Younger brother. And you know it was written sensation. Do you. Think that there was very some. Waka Flocka one that was OK but I mean that's what this whole learning process has been learning a better way to do things and a lot of the a lot of the real breakthroughs in a lot of fields not just the music and sound field have come from totally unexpected sources. We have introduced here PVA a revolutionary computerized sound system called Media matrix wherein

all the signal processing is done inside of a PC. We have some input be it a microphone or or something that goes into the computer as processed all the mixing all the signal processing equalization delay functions compression noise gates whatever. It's all accomplished within the PC and the outputs go into a power amp foreign speaker we with first one of the world. Ever do that. And we literally can take a job that has been constant a million dollars. In a cathedral or not we have done Superdome but less sighted Superdome or somewhere like that the Georgia Dome wherever and a system that would cost 1 to 2 million dollars. We can bring it in now for fifty sixty seventy thousand dollars so I mean we just chop the legs right out from under that. This is totally new totally revolutionary and we're selling it all over the world it's going in some of the most prestigious installations in the world. Right it's the sound system in the U.S. Senate it's our

system. You know in the years back we were the small cap and I was drawn to him when I was the competition for somebody of a large organization. But now we are a large organization and there are smaller ones out there like we used to be just as home when I come home. So we cannot become complacent. And what with on it we got to continue to go to. Thanks Mark and thank positive about where we go and know that we can do. As has been known to say that we can we got to have a can do attitude. The answer to our economic problems do not lie entirely within the borders of USA we've got to sell our products in other countries. Not many people realize that only 5 percent of the world's population there's no state. Ninety five percent of our potential cost. Most are aware that the tricky is you have to go over there to sell. We have factory that we are really proud of in Corby England

and this is our European headquarters. We manufacture products and ship those products in the European community and that same facility operates is also like it warehouse for products made in our factories in Mississippi and Alabama. We had two buildings in this complex up to my last year and now we had them we had three and we took on the said building last man so what on earth are we going to do with always additional space. Twelve months later we're voting at the sames again it's all part of the Katie price fluctuates just valued by you described garden grown. Contributing to that growth was the idea of creating a true international sales office based in the Corby facility introduce the use of free 800 numbers for the European community and they said well we have these free phone numbers. You know they're available. Let's bring these numbers in one for each country and we bring him in and we try and devise some sort of procedure

where the phone rings and we know that's from Spain. We know it's from France we know it's from Germany or whatever. And the sales coordinator who manned cell phone. Obviously has to have that language skills to conduct a transparent business. You are paving painter in hand because you're a criminal Paris wherever it happens to be. We would like you to phone PV just like our American customs Phi Meridian and feel comfortable that they're dating in their own. Comfort zone if you will. And to do that of course we have to greet them and transect our business in. The language of that particular country. I would not want to be told I'm I do feel well. English is the world's universal language so therefore you should know how to speak our language. Plus I felt like those things would increase business which it is.

We've received a number of awards including the highest award the Commerce Dept. gives to American industry called the Star Award for Excellence in exporting. In 1992. Then President Bush came down to visit us as kind of a nod to those American industries that were doing a good job of exporting. I think you've really clearly demonstrated and I hope this visit amplifies this around the country that quality people do mean quality products and hardly wants for market fat cats don't hunt well. If you spend prowling the global marketplace with a hunger that won't quit and you export I'm told to 100 in three countries accounting for more than 40 percent of your sales. Two amplifiers are top sellers in Japan and PV proves that more foreign exports means more American jobs.

Hundreds of musical products around the world bear the pain but at home in Meridian there is a special place where the name stands for hope. The shelter for abused and neglected children simply called the PBS the PBS idea started by sickly one weekend in Fort Lauderdale partly for a business trip and I was just listening to the news and there were three episodes just one right after the other about child abuse and I was just horrified with the stories that were told. I just started thinking I've never heard anything in radians a city about a child

abuse shelter right about the sime time I heard on the news in Meridian that someone hand left a 4 year old out at 2:00 in the morning and dropped him how the truck stopped on the interstate here and just left him and the child. You know they were going to say we know the parents and it was a story of just abandonment and I'm just I just didn't understand you let that go on and I just felt why go God deciding what you need to jump into this and try to do something about it. And so one thing just kind of led to another. The planning of the shelter happened to coincide with the peavy 25th anniversary celebration a three day event climaxed by a huge outdoor concert. I just thought at the time what what better way to bring all of that together since Kenny Loggins in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Gary Morrison a lot of wonderful people came in and did free concerts. I wanted

employees families to be able to come to at least some of the parts of it. I want our dealers to be able to come away our indoor season with our customers. And I want the community to be able to be involved be involved in it because there's been a lot of wonderful people in all of those areas that have helped us. And I said well let's start a nominal thing. So thereby I can still go to do some good with that money and take that money and put it to getting the shelter off and and rolling so we did that and that also allowed since it was so much tied into that huge 25th celebration that really helped kick the shelter off even more. So putting ideas together and I found a wonderful home that I was in bad need of repair but I just fell in love with it. And it's so historic register. And it took a lot of work and people in Meridian were just wonderful people just came out from everywhere.

A lot of times things that happen to us as people. But we chose something that that led to whatever happened we had a choice. These kids have no choice. These kids are our little victims of situations that they can't do anything about they're not old enough they're not smart enough they're not big enough. This shelter is set up as a home maybe as it was a home prior to Hartley Peavey bought this house and donated it to the shelter and as long as we have shelter here then it's ours. We are licensed to serve 12 children by the time ages birth to 12 years of age. Four. Period if that is so the social worker can bring a child here and will take care of them we send him disco we clothe them we feed them we make sure they have all their medical needs until social worker can either reunite them with the family or find a foster home for them. We have three bedrooms so we have a nursery with

Korea absent in the girl's room with four beds and boys from the four bands. So it's amazing how often it works out that that's just what we can use you know. I tease some of the social workers sometimes when they call and I say you know I can't tell I've got to Korea you know that they would tell me oh well he's only a small for a cryptology but it works out usually I have not had to turn away many children because I didn't have a bed for that gender. You know we've had to turn away children because we're full. There are so many people involved in this art that to keep the shelter running and find it in that thing that sort of thing not only inside the company but inside of our daily structure and. Are all of our distributors all over the world and that's really been Natan exciting to say so many people get involved in them the cause is such a desire and as my I always say it's children can't do anything

for themselves. My expectations right now are to be able to shut down TV house because there's never a need for it again. For 31 years electronics has been synonymous with growth and in that time hardly in my league I have seen their two sons grow with their own ideas about the future of the company. I'd like to bring PV more into the home to make it more of a. More of a known name than it is like it's known in the trade very much. But we don't have any sort of national advertisement. And I feel like if we did that people would have that name recognition and be able to get a lot better. Really. The company. Basically spreading in. So many different areas. Everywhere. There's music in everyday. Life. And. Things like that. In most ways and. Explore. Different markets. Different types. You.

Electronically. For basically anything you can set your sights on like. Peter. Carey. I am late I feel good because we've been a big part of helping a lot of people grow. Giving people chances that otherwise wouldn't have a chance. So if if indeed to us that's success then I feel like we've been reasonably successful cause we do feel like that we're making a difference not just in the marketplace but in people's lives. We we've we've we've helped people grow. I would like to think that the most important thing that I do here would be to motivate people and to. Help people be the best that they can to

question themselves and not just do something because it's the way that it's always been done. So this idealized corporate environment where everybody is on a first name basis and there's another layoff policy and then that kind of thing that totally improbable industrial Camelot should never have succeeded but in fact it did. It succeeded because a lot of people were given an opportunity and they rose to the challenge. And I'm proud to say they're continuing to do that. I want to see very strong growth because I want to see it for our employees to and the only way we thinking grow is if we grow they only where they can give be given new challenges new opportunities is for the company to be more challenged and to grow so that there are more opportunities.

When I hang up my rock n roll shoes what I would like for people would say is well. That old boy he he did it right he was crazy. But but he did it right. As we say down South when you make a good biscuit you don't change the recipe.

This Mississippi master's profile was made possible in part by a grant from the PHIL HARDING foundation up already dedicated to improving education for Mississippians.