How One CEO Beat Workaholism and Saved His Marriage

On this episode of Our American Stories, Steve Trice spent years chasing success, often leaving home before sunrise and returning long after his children were asleep. Then one conversation with his wife forced him to face a hard truth: if nothing changed, he was going to lose the people he loved most. The founder of Jasco Products shares how stepping away from work helped him build something far more valuable than a business.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. That's our Americanstories dot com.
There's some of our favorites. And now we bring you

(00:30):
another story from Steve Trice, and he's the founder of
a leading electronics company called Jasco Products, who tells us
the story of his marriage and in light of an
upbringing of many divorces and alcoholism. Here's Steve.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
When Nan and I talked about getting married when we
were twenty three twenty four years old, told her at
one point, I said, you don't want to marry me.
I don't think you like it. And she said, what
do you mean I want to marry you? And I said, well,

(01:13):
I get up and go to work at seven o'clock
in the morning and I get home at eleven o'clock
at night. Because I had been trained up by my
daddy and I learned how to be. I wasn't an alcoholic,
but I was a workholic.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
I was getting my value out of my job. And
she said, I thought very naively at the time, Steve,
that's enough for me, that that's okay, that'll be great.
I said, oh okay. So we went ahead and got married,

(01:49):
and a year later we had our first child. It
wasn't that literal. I wasn't eleven o'clock every night. And
then we had our second child pretty quick after that.
At that point, I was off Target stores in Minneapolis.
I'd leave Minneapolis. I'd go to Hong Kong, fly back
to Tokyo, come back home, get back on the airplane,

(02:11):
and go to Minneapolis. It was just constant. And one
day Nan said, Steve, Tomorrow Saturday, I've accepted a part
time job. I'm going to be working at a gift shop.
I said, oh, that's neat. Who's going to take care

(02:33):
of the kids. And she said, Steve, I've been taking
care of the kids for the last few years. It's
your problem. You figure it out. The previous Saturday was
the last Saturday that I ever worked. I never worked
another Saturday. I had always worked on Saturday. So I
started becoming a little bit better, and then we had

(02:57):
a significant problem months later, and she said, Steve, this
thing of you being gone all the time, it's not working,
And I said, but wait a minute. Do you remember
what she said back before we got married, that you know,
seven to eleven if that was fine, that was all

(03:18):
you needed. She said, guess what, I've changed the rules.
It's not going to work anymore. And I said, oh.
And after being raised in the family that I was
raised in, I was scared to death that I was
going to lose my family and I would on that day.

(03:39):
And I look back, Did I know the Lord Jesus Christ? No?
Can I look back and see his hand on my
life all the way through my life? And that day
I knew that I didn't want to lose my family,
and I knew that I was getting ready to. And
I went to my dad next day and I said, Dad,

(04:02):
I'm not working after six o'clock anymore. So now I'm
Monday through Friday early in the morning till six o'clock.
And it got better and better and better and better.
And I worked out of workaholism and learned it and
learned to take care of my family, to be a
boy Scout leader, to go on camp house with my kids,

(04:24):
to go to the lake and spend weekends and water
ski and all those things and just loved being a
family man. We had a fight one day. I remember

(04:44):
exactly where it was, right outside of our master bathroom,
in our bedroom. We had had an argument and with
my background and my mentality, and I was fed up
and I said, Honey, I'm out of here. She kind

(05:04):
of took about two steps forward and stood right in
front of me, and she looked up at me and
she said, Steve, you might be able to walk out
that door, but I just want you to know I can't.
She said. I said till death do us part. And

(05:26):
I believe it, and I'm committed to it. And you
got to do what you got to do. But what
I hope you'll do is stand here with me and
we'll work it out together. I can't say enough about
how my bride has helped me in my life. My bride,
Anne and I have now been married for forty eight

(05:48):
almost forty nine years. Our marriage is growing, Our marriage
is getting better every day. We pray together. We asked
the Lord to grow marriage. Our sons have been married
nineteen and twenty years. We pray for them that the
Lord will teach our sons how to love their wives,

(06:09):
their wives how to love and respect their husband, that
they'll teach our sons and their wives how to train
up their children and the way that they should go.
Our oldest grandchild is thirteen, and we pray for her husband.
She didn't have a husband yet she will someday maybe.
And we pray for our little eleven and ten year old.

(06:30):
Three little guys, We pray for their wives. We pray
for their children, their grandchildren and their great grandchildren, and
that they will grow up as God's disciples following him.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
And great job as always to Alex and special thanks
to Steve Trace were sharing that story and it's a
humbling story. But that's a lot of guys and frankly
a lot of women too. We have our problems that
we bring to any marriage and workaholism. Well, in the end,
that was Steve's getting his identity through work and having
a wife who loved him enough to bring him out

(07:06):
of that. As he put it, I worked out of
being a workaholic. Steve Trice's story, his brides, his family.
Here on our American story. Folks, I you love the

(07:31):
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(07:52):
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