‘Greedy’ people can do good work

O.T. Neal, Boulder City

Thursday, May 31, 2012 | 2:01 a.m.

In his May 28 letter, Richard J. Mundy claims Mitt Romney did not have job creation as his main motivation at Bain Capital. He says it was all about making money.

He’s right.

In 1978, I invested $135,000 in a startup company in an undeveloped industry. We were the pioneers. This business grew at an unbelievable rate. The company was three times in Fortune Magazine’s 100 fastest growing privately-held American companies in our first eight years. Currently, the company has 1,500 employees and 650 dealers in all 50 states and provinces in Canada as well as 250 more in 40 other foreign countries. We worked day and night, and most weekends, to make it all happen.

Other companies got into the business, perhaps now as many as 80-90 manufacturers. We still maintain our reputation as the prime manufacturer, and we dominate the industry with around 35 percent of the market share.

When you count our employees, the suppliers for our manufacturing services and materials, and the 900 dealers, who have an average of 10 employees, it’s fair to say my initial investment created at least 10,000 new jobs. We won’t take credit for the rest of the industry, just the ones we directly affected.

We are very happy and proud for all the good we did, but we really did it for the money!

That’s how it works. Good things happen when capitalism flourishes. That’s my story, and it is Mitt Romney’s, as well.

“Greedy” capitalists do good work for everybody.