Called to a Different Purpose: The Story of Robert Fulton and His Vision for Web Industries

By Kevin Belmonte

The defining trait of the story that began with Robert Fulton is not just the creation of a good company in 1969 that has since become highly successful. What sets this story apart is his lifelong relationship with Jesus Christ and how honoring God was central to all his decisions. From the start, it called for a different kind of company culture—rooted in his faith-based principles that looked to the inherent value of each person and developing their God-given potential. That has become a hallmark of Web Industries in the fifty years of its existence.

Robert Fulton shaped his company’s culture believing that relationships are the very essence of life. He implemented an employee stock ownership plan because he believed the people who worked alongside him to build the company’s value should share in that value. These employee-owners are at the heart of why this company has won a place of great influence and respect in the corporate world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973644453

Kevin Belmonte

Kevin Belmonte holds a BA in English Literature and two MA's in Church History and American and New England studies. He is the author of several books including William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity and winner of the prestigious John Pollock Award for Christian Biography

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 Kevin Belmonte.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4444-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4443-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4445-3 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/13/2018

DEDICATION

To the memory of Robert A. Fulton,

a friend whom so many of us knew as Fulty.

May others come to know him, and his faith, through this book…

Today, new employees join a company with an ownership and values culture, without knowing where these came from. The truth is, Web Industries’ values are rooted in the deep Christian faith of its founder, Robert Fulton, who expressed his desire to run a business that would honor God in all its ways. From the very beginning, he believed that the capital value of the business being created should be shared with the people that built the company, not just a single owner.¹

– D.J. Romine, CEO of Web Industries

What do you spend your time thinking about?²

* * *

What are you looking for in this life?³

* * *

Grow in life’s experiences.⁴

* * *

The essence of life is relationships.⁵

– Robert Fulton

CONTENTS

Foreword – A Company’s True Wealth

Preface – Why this Book?

Prologue – East Boston, 1969

Chapter One – The Magic of a Broom

Chapter Two – Lessons from the Past

Chapter Three – Role Models and Trail-Blazers

Chapter Four – On The Reading of Books

Chapter Five – Taking Care of the Team, 1985

Chapter Six – Framing An Ethos, 1991

Chapter Seven – What Makes A Company Special?

Chapter Eight – the power of personal example

Afterword

Acknowledgements

Parting Words

About Web Industries

Web Industries’ Recipe for Business Success

About Robert Fulton

A Robert Fulton Timeline

40 Fulton Favorite Books – A Select List

7 Favorite Bible Passages – Chosen by Robert Fulton

Appendix – the text of Robert Fulton’s honorary doctorate

of humane letters citation from Gordon College (1996)

Endnotes

FOREWORD – A COMPANY’S TRUE WEALTH

Sometimes, just one statistic can drive a point home …

Consider this data point for Web Industries: as of September 30, 2017, Web’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) created thirty-seven millionaires, seventeen of whom are non-management, the others now mid-level managers.¹

For a company that started in 1969—with slender seed-money and a prayer, this is a remarkable thing. It rests in a founder’s belief that the people I hired are the ones who have run the company. They make things happen.²

We may put it another way: a company’s true wealth rests in the men and women who’ve made it a success.

Web Industries stands testament to that, and has from the start.

* * *

Consider the story of Rob Zicaro.

In 1989, twenty years after Web was founded, Rob started out as a machine assistant. After four years, he moved into a front line team leader/supervisor role for the rest of his career with Web. He studied for two academic degrees during this time, and through Web’s ground-breaking ESOP paradigm, earned enough wealth to retire early, and get back to his first passion: music. I now have the resources, Rob has said, to focus full-time on my music and songwriting.³

And he has been doing just that, since December 2015.

* * *

How does a firm that began by producing small rolls of coated copy paper become a $200 million dollar company on the eve of its 50th Anniversary?

We may look to Web’s employee owners.

But they would be the first to point to something more.

It all began with the faith of Robert A. Fulton, the company’s founder.

PREFACE – WHY THIS BOOK?

Looking at a weaver’s web, do you not find it composed of a countless number of separate threads, all closely and skillfully interwoven? From this combination of threads does not the web gradually assume its texture and form?

Every human being is a weaver. This is true of all alike, whatever be their age, or character … To weave this web is the life-long business of each one of us. To this end we were sent into the world … ¹

– Adam Blyth (1867)

I’m a risk taker, with a bit of the visionary mixed in.²

– Robert Fulton (February 2001)

Every book has a character all its own, and this book is no different.

It’s partly a story about a prominent, growing company; but mainly a story about that company’s remarkable founder, and the singular culture that developed under his stewardship, in concert with other talented colleagues.

Robert Fulton was the founder of Web Industries, and I had the privilege of knowing him. Part of that privilege was the gift of interviewing him for this book, over several days, shortly before his passing.

And if ever a man was eighty-six-years-young he was.

All during the time we talked together, I could see how he warmed to the idea of a book that would capture the best things that had unfolded at Web during his time there, and the years after. Most especially, he wished to impart a founder’s voice to this project. I could hear that in the sound of his voice, and the kindness he showed me at every turn as a researcher in search of key details.

We’d become friends in the fall of 2014—during the time I helped him write a book of Christian reflections based on the brief presentations he’d given at board meetings of Web Industries over the years. That book, Life Words, quickly became a special one, with so much of Bob’s voice present in its pages—and many tenets of wisdom he’d gleaned over two decades and more from the Scriptures.

One day, in early autumn of 2017, I had a transformative conversation with Ted Lind, Chairman of the Board for Web Industries, though I little knew it at the time. We both attend the same church, and one Sunday, we saw one another while walking through the parking lot with our families to go to morning service.

We stopped to chat for a few moments.

As we spoke, Ted told me Bob Fulton had grown frail in recent weeks. And Ted told me he was troubled by the thought that Bob’s presence at gatherings for Web Industries would diminish over time. As I listened, Ted’s words seemed like an unspoken wish for Bob’s vital involvement with Web to go on—always.

I could well understand why.

For though I’d only known Bob a few years, each meeting, or phone call, was marked by his trademark kindness, ready tokens of friendship, and wisdom. In fact, I told Ted that Bob had called me only a few days before—for no special reason—but just to see how I was doing, and to ask what new book projects I had underway. He told me about several books he’d been reading, and I told him about the books I hoped to write in the near future. Matter-of-factly, he told me that he’d recently had heart surgery, and how very thankful he was to have each day as it came.

He marveled over this, and I was moved by the simple tone of wonder in his voice. I asked if we might pray together to close our call, and I will always remember the humility and gratitude of his words as they went heavenward.

It was all so much like him, I told Ted, and it was then we both agreed that if ever a person had a gift for friendship, it was our remarkable friend Bob Fulton.

He was a bright light in so many lives.

* * *

At intervals, in the church service which followed, I kept thinking about the things Ted had said. Then a thought, or rather a keen sense of prompting, occurred: I’d often interviewed Bob in working on the Life Words book project.

Why not do that again, with a view to creating a book that could tell the story of Web Industries from Bob’s point of view? Such a book would be a way for people—readers all over the world—to get to know something about Bob—to hear and learn from him, as it were, as Ted and so many others had over the years.

In this way Bob’s guiding presence could go on, for years to come.

And such a book could be at once a keepsake and chronicle—for all family, friends, and friends-yet-to-be to read and re-visit.

So I jotted a