Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories and up next, well, it's
time for our Faith in Action series, where we tell
you stories about how people of faith live it out
in the public square. Alex Cortez brings us today's story.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Steve Trice, with his two sons, lead Jasco Products, a
nine figure electrical products company.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
We gave away all of Jashco Products to a trust,
and we get nothing and can take nothing out of
the trust. The trust is required to give a minimum
of fifty percent to charity. We give away all available
(00:55):
profits of the company. It's fifty percent of our profits.
But if you take fifty percent of profits and you
add to it taxes, and you add to what the
company needs to grow on, we give away all of
the available profits, giving away fifty percent. So Jasco Products
has no human owners anymore. My sons and I get
(01:22):
a market salary and a market bonus. And with a
company this size, market salary and market bonus, I would
offer who needs more than that? You know, we don't
need jetair planes and we live well. But as Christians,
(01:43):
we all say that God owns it all, that God
owns my business. If God owns my business, who owns
the profit from the business. Now I deserve a salary,
I deserve a bonus for you know, whatever the incentive
pro is for what I do for the company. But
who owns the profit of the business. If God owns
(02:05):
the business, he owns the prophet, and so they go
to him.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
And with Steve and his family not hogging all the
profits for themselves, they could do quite a lot for
all of their employees who are also helping produce all
of these profits.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
We took a look a few years ago at how
we can best minister to them, and we have a
company chaplain that's available to them twenty four to seven.
In fact, we now have three company chaplains that are
available to them twenty four to seven. If they've been
with the company for a year, they can get a
full ride scholarship to Mid America Christian University, either online
(02:46):
or on campus night school if you will. That's available
to all of our team, or they can get to
another Christian school if they live somewhere else, but Mid
America is everywhere online. We do Bible studies for couples.
We have a class that we call Raising Kids God's Way,
(03:07):
So we have a class to teach parents how to
train up their children. We use Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace
at Work to teach them how to work with their
money and how to save and how to get out
of debt, and how to do all that biblically. And
you know if you listen to that, well, we train
them how to be the individual. We train them with
(03:30):
the company Chaplain Mid America Christian University, Bible Studies for Individuals,
Bible Studies for couples, Bible Studies for couples, training up
their children, teaching them how to manage their money, and
we also teach them how to give it away. We
match up to five thousand dollars their giving, not to
(03:52):
their church, but to other ministries. We match their time
with up to fifteen dollars an hour, And when they
give their time to a ministry, we match it and
we'll give up for the amount of time that they
give to that ministry. We'll send that ministry a check
for fifteen dollars an hour for their time. And if
(04:15):
you take all those things that I just told you,
to the best of our ability, we're treating the whole person.
We sell all of the major mass merchants across the country.
And I used to think how would we witness to them?
And lo and behold, they started coming here. We got
(04:37):
to be important enough to them that groups from target groups,
from Walmart, groups from the Home Depot, etc. Come here
for meetings. And the first part of our meeting we
always show them videos of what their profits are doing,
the profits that we make off of their business are
(04:59):
doing to help people all over the world. We had
an executive vice president here a couple of years ago
from the Home Depot.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
A guy named Giles Bowman.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
And we have a Water four well outside, a hand
drilled well. And Water four is a ministry in Africa
that is working at wiping out the water crisis, and
they drill wells in all these villages and the clean water.
You know, the women were walking twenty miles a day
(05:33):
bringing dirty water out of a pond back to their family,
and now all of a sudden, the clean water comes
up out of the ground right under their feet, and
they get a message about that's the clean water, and
let us tell you about the living water of Jesus Christ.
(05:53):
And then they disciple the people and then train them
how to drill well. You know, at the end of
showing people all those things. They say, why in the
world would you give away all of the prophets of
the company to you know, I mean is that? I
(06:15):
mean they think that's really bizarre, and they say, why
would you do it? One Peter three fifteen and sixteen says,
always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who
asks you to give the reason for the hope that
you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, you know.
And so we show them all that, And when they
(06:36):
ask us why, we tell them it's the Lord's ministry,
and we explain to them why we serve the Lord,
and gives us an opportunity to share the gospel of
Jesus Christ and spread the gospel which Mark sixteen fifteen,
go into all the world and preach the gospel to
(06:57):
all creation. And so we get to do that with
our major customers. That one would think the environment's very sterile.
And I've got pictures of Giles out there drilling well.
And that night we all went to dinner, and Giles
got up and shared his testimony with all of our
(07:18):
people and with the home depot team. Beautiful testimony. He said.
Usually when we walk in the door, were shuffled off
to a conference room and they start showing us slides
of all the product that they want us to buy.
And he said, this is the first time we ever
came in and you spent the first half a day
(07:39):
showing us what our profits are doing to benefit people
all over the world. So that's who we are, and
that's kind of what we do. If you walk in
the front of our corporate offices in Oklahoma City and
you look up over the fouryer, you see a great,
big mural that says a whole lot of things and
(07:59):
intertwined into it, it says things like the power of
One God and Christ Centered. And my sons redesigned the
building a few years ago, and I had never seen
that mural. And I walked in the front door and
I said, guys, that's beautiful, But aren't you concerned that
(08:24):
the high up ranking people from the largest mass merchants
in this country come walking in that front door. Aren't
you concerned that somebody is going to feel offended? You know?
And my eldest son, Jason said, Dad, that's who we are.
And he said, we can't deny who we are. And
(08:48):
if it costs us business, it costs us business. Some
of the greatest words I ever heard out of one
of my sons, you know, and no, to the best
of our knowledge, it's never cost us in business. On
the other hand, because of what they see us doing
with the prophets that it's helped our business, not heard it,
and our business continues to grow and grow and grow.
(09:11):
And we've got stories about people that work for those
major mass Martians that have come into or deepened their
walk with the Lord because of things they heard here.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
What a remarkable story about a in essence, a family
business that isn't owned by the family anymore, and indeed
isn't owned by anybody. A beautiful story about faith and action.
And by the way, the sons teaching their father a
little something because the sons are just who they are.
In this great country, you can be who you are,
(09:44):
no matter what your faith, where you came from, your
ethnic heritage. That's the beautiful part of this country. We
don't punish each other for who we are. We love
each other for who we are. When we come back
more of Steve Trice's story, our Faith in Action series
continues and we continue with our American stories and with
(10:12):
the story of Jasco Products, the company that serves their
employees and gives away all available profits. Let's return to
their founder, Steve Trace.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
I listened to a seminar and I heard what the
minimum salary was for the poverty level. And when I
heard that number, I started calculating what our warehouse people
were making. We were paying them market rates at the time.
Well that was fine, but to support a family of four,
(10:48):
it was below the poverty rate. And so we got
together and prayed and determined that we would raise their
salary to of the poverty rate, and we pay an
incentive on top of that, an incentive based on profits
for everybody that works in the company. And the fascinating
(11:10):
thing about that there was a cost, a big cost
to making that raise for that many people. And in
the next year we became so much more efficient in
the warehouse by employing the right people that wanted the jobs,
and so on and so forth. We ended up making
(11:32):
money on doing it. And frankly, that's what the Lord
has taught me about giving over and over and over.
Go back to nineteen ninety one when I started walking
with the Lord. As you progress, and it's a progressive thing,
(11:53):
I had learned to tithe individually giving ten percent of
neands and my personal income become nineteen ninety seven, I
was moved and led by the Lord to start tithing
on corporate profits. So I'm really doing thinking and praying
about that. In that same year, in October of that year,
(12:16):
we had a man come to us that owned a
factory that was making a product for us in Antenna,
and he needed three hundred thousand dollars to make the antennas.
And he asked me he'd run short. His business was growing,
and he asked me if he could borrow three hundred
thousand dollars. And he said, oh, and I'll pay you
(12:37):
twelve percent interest. I know that sounds like a lot today,
that was the going rate back then, and it was
guaranteed by the product that he was going to produce
for us. So I said, well, that's a good deal.
And his name was Randy, and I said, Randy, absolutely,
you know we'd love to do that. He said, and
by the way, though, I want to give you X
(12:57):
number of shares and our public held company. And he
said it's not worth anything hardly, but I want to
give it to you. And I said, Randy, you don't
have to do that, and he said, Steve, I've always
wanted you to own stock in our company, and it's
a gift. And I said okay, and I gave it
(13:19):
to my CFO and I told him, you know, here,
put that into wards another asset of the company. It's
not worth much. But anyway, that was in October of
nineteen ninety seven, and I've been talking to my CFO
about we're going to start tithing on corporate profits. And
my CFO said, no, Steve, we can't do that. We're
(13:42):
highly leveraged. We owe too much money. We need to
take every penny that we get our hands on and
give it to the bank. And I prayed about it
and I said, no, Scott, we are going to start
tithing this year on company profits. Got to the end
of that year and I'm dramatizing. I had a death
(14:05):
grip on the one hundred thousand dollars check that we
were going to give away, and at eleven fifty nine,
I'm dramatizing. On December the thirty first, I let it go.
And it was again it's probably the twenty fifth, you know,
(14:25):
but I let it go. Literally on the twelfth day
of January of nineteen ninety eight. Scott Busby, my CFO
at the time, walked in the door and he said, Steve,
you remember that stock that Randy gave you back in October?
(14:49):
And I said, well sure, and he said it just
went to a dollar twenty fourth share and I said great,
what does that mean? He said it means it's worth
seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars And I said what
And he said what do you want me to do
with it? And I said sell it. Two days later
(15:11):
stock went back down. I asked Randy why did the
stock go up and then back down? He said, Steve,
I have no idea. There was no reason for that
stock to go up. It just happened. The Lord taught
me Alex that day that you will never outgive me.
(15:33):
You can't outgive me. Second. Corinthian's nine six through eleven
says now this, I say, he who sos sparingly will
also reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
Each one must do just as he has purposed in
his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion. For God loves
(15:57):
that your forgiver, and God is able to make all
grace abound to you, so that always, having all sufficiency
in everything, you will have an abundance for every good deed.
As it is written, he scattered abroad, he gave to
the poor. His righteousness endures forever. Now, he who supplies
(16:17):
seed to the sower and bread for food, will supply
and multiply your seed for sowing, and will increase the
harvest of your righteousness. And you will be enriched in
all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgivings to God.
So we gradually started giving more and more and more,
(16:41):
and we got to two thousand and eight. You'll remember
the Great Recession. We were at that point given away
about twenty five percent, and suddenly less footsteps and all
those mass retailer stores, and our business dropped off very quickly,
(17:03):
almost twenty five percent. We were talking about layoffs. My
sons and I went to our knees and we started praying, Lord,
what would you have us do? How do we do
layoffs with integrity? All three of us got back together
and we came back with the same thing that the
(17:26):
Lord wanted us to double our giving. I remember the thought,
wait a minute, revenues are going down. Business has been
very good before that, happened so quickly. Expenses are going up,
and you want us to not only increase our giving
(17:46):
a little bit, you want us to double our giving
from twenty five to fifty percent. We said we had
the faith to do it before, We're going to have
the faith to do it now that year two thousand
and eight. The footsteps didn't come back in two thousand
(18:08):
and nine, but we increase market share faster than we
ever had and we had record years in two thousand
and nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. That's what God has
done in this company. He put it on our hearts.
No layoffs, double your giving, and the business grew dramatically.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
And you've been listening to Steve Trace tell the story
of Jasco Products and how they go about their business.
And a special thanks to Bill High for telling us
about Steve's story. Bill is the founder of the Signatory,
which has helped generous families give over two billion dollars
to ministries around the world. You can learn more about
(18:57):
their work at the Signatrey dot com. Steve Trice's Story
our Faith in Action series here on our American Story