By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
John Hazen White, Jr. is continuing the tradition his grandfather started in 1920. It’s the family business, Taco, and it’s entering its fourth generation in the Hazen White family tree.
Today, Taco, a Cranston-based, HVAC manufacturing company, employs 500 people – 400 in Rhode Island and another 100 in Fall River, MA. White, the company’s president and CEO, said the secret to Taco’s longevity lays in their products and the consumer’s reliance on them.
“[We’re in] an industry that really depends on Taco as a major player, and we’ve continued to invest in new product development and our employees,” he said.
It’s not an easy business, either. White said Taco’s competitors are mutli-billion, mutli-national companies. But to White, Taco is about much more than the bottom line.
“Owning the business allows me to drive it the way I see best suited for it,” he said. “I’m not focused on profitability. I’m not focused on returns. I’m not focused on anything other than what’s best for the business .”
When asked what the greatest lesson he’s learned from being in business is, White says, “No one can do better for me than I can do for myself.”
And White has done well for himself, especially in a state that’s got a reputation for being bad for business.
“I love Rhode Island,” said White.
The problem, he said, is that Rhode Island is “visually unattractive to business” – on paper, the state just looks like a bad place for investment and growth.
“It would be easier to go to some lower cost place,” he said. But on the flip side, White said Rhode Island is not all that bad.
“I’ve never seen a better workforce anywhere in the world,” he said. “It’s a great place in many, many ways.”
White said instead of trying to be something that we’re not, Rhode Island should try to play up its strengths. What the state needs, he said, is to “try to evolve to a much more attractive posture in the competitive world of business and economic development.”
The wrong way to do that, said White, is by making multi-million dollar investments in short-lived bio-medical and video game companies.
He called the 38 Studios debacle an “absolute disaster” and an “utter disgrace,” and said he doesn’t understand why Rhode Island would chase after the same industries that are booming on Route 128 in neighboring Massachusetts.
“One of the mistakes that Rhode Island has made, and is still making, is trying to position itself as something it’s not,” he said.
With one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, White said we should be looking to create manufacturing jobs for workers throughout the state.
“I’m a believer for the possibilities of that,” he said.
By creating more jobs and growing the tax base, the state will be able to pull out of its financial distress, he said.
“We need more taxpayers, not higher taxes,” he said. “And the only way to create more tax payers is to create more jobs.”
He said Rhode Island needs to be a place that attracts more businesses, not compels them to leave.
“They can talk all night long about things that don’t matter in the State House, but they need to get their heads around economic development,” he said.
Despite his ideas and strong opinion, White said he has no plans to get into politics. His television show and blog of the same name, “Lookout,” is his way of spreading his message.
So instead of trying his hand at politics, White said he’ll continue to grow his business the way his father and grandfather did before him. His two sons also plan to follow in the White family footsteps. So what advice does he give to them?
“We are here.” he said. “This is what it is. We’ve succeeded to this point with all the good and the bad …the best approach I’ve had to success is to put our heads down and keep on going, not to spend our lives mucked up in the negativity so many people are caught up in.”
Although he has plans to expand Taco in the future, it doesn’t seem like White is in a hurry to move his company or his family away from the Ocean State.
“I love Rhode Island,” he said. “I love the people in Rhode Island and most all, what it stands for. And that’s why we’re still here.”
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