A Chat with April’s Profile, A.G. Russell and Goldie Russell, president and CEO, A.G. Russell Knives

A.G.: Between 1980 and 1984, it declined from my high of $998,000 to less than $250,000. But 1984 was the last down year. We’ve been up every year since then.

Goldie: I started in late 1988.

CS: Goldie, what did you do when you first came on?
Goldie: A.G. and I had just gotten married. I had a small service business and I was working very hard. He talked me into giving that up, with the idea being that with my art background, I would come in and build his catalogs and advertising campaigns. That was the first thing I did. He hadn’t produced a catalog in four years. My first responsibility then was getting the catalog built. That was a real learning experience. I had been a secondary school art teacher. I had no experience in business, no experience in building catalogs. But I did have training in terms of how things should look and how to design layouts. Very quickly I took over the management of the day-to-day activities, as well as the catalog. And we started growing.