Randy Boyd’s passions: pets, education and kilts!

Randy Boyd speaking to Nucleus. (That's Patrick Powell's head!)

Randy Boyd speaking to Nucleus. (That's Patrick Powell's head!)

Randy Boyd, the CEO of Knoxville-based PetSafe, spoke to the young-ish business folks in Nucleus Knoxville for about 20 minutes recently. Here’s what they found out:

  • Boyd is committed to making Knoxville the most pet-friendly city in the country — and he is succeeding.
  • He wants every kid in Tennessee to have the opportunity to go to college — even if they can’t afford it. That effort is progressing nicely, too.
  • He expects his $340 million-per-year company to be a $1 billion-per-year company by 2015. It already is the world’s largest provider of electronic containment, behavior and training products for dogs and cats.
  • The new Scottish pub he and his wife, Jenny, are opening in the Old City will be ready next month and will sell beer for half-price to anyone wearing a kilt!

Wow. That’s a lot to cover in 20 minutes. Plus he shared his own personal history about how he started working for his father for $1 per hour when he was 8, graduated from high school at 16, graduated from college at 19 and hit the road selling electric fences out of his used  truck to farm supply stores in the Deep South, staying in cheap hotels and sleeping only three hours per night. ( Click here to read more about that in a 2009 article in Business Tennessee magazine when he was named CEO of the year.)

Patrick Powell and Nucleus President Lisa Wiles

Patrick Powell and Nucleus President Lisa Wiles

But I think what struck the Nucleoids (that’s their self-invented nick name) the most about Boyd was his sheer physical and mental intensity. He practically took the meeting room at the Grill at Highlands Row by storm.

“What impressed me the most,” said Nucleus member Gavin Baker, “was his energy and his enthusiasm for both his business and for making the world a better place. And Knoxville a better place.”

Boyd, who told the group he has “one wife, two sons, one dog, two cats, and a parrot,” said his company has donated over a half-million dollars to create six public dog parks in Knox County. It also has partnered with Young-Williams Animal Center to open a pet adoption center on Bearden Hill and increase the number of spay and neuter operations the Center can perform. Partly due to this, euthanasia of  dogs and cats in Knox County has fallen from more than 12,000 per year in 2009 to 8,000 in 2010, he said. He also has funded a position at the University of Tennessee Vet School for a pet behaviorist.

Eric Botts, left, and Gavin Baker at Nucleus meeting

Eric Botts, left, and Gavin Baker at Nucleus meeting

As part of his effort to make our community the country’s most “pet friendly,” Boyd met with former Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale to share his vision and enlist Ragsdale’s help. In the process, Ragsdale enlisted Boyd’s help with his own favorite cause, KnoxAchieves, which aims to make it possible for every Knox County student to attend college. Boyd signed on and KnoxAchieves sent 323 students to college last year and plans to send 646 this year. The program also is morphing to become Tennessee Achieves, expanding the effort statewide.

As for the business, Boyd’s motto is innovate or die. The company produces 4,000 products and introduces between 40 and 50 more each year, he said. The number one company value is, “Try a lot of stuff and keep what works.” To see a list of the company’s other values, which Boyd said are “the most critical things” about the company, click here.

A few other things Boyd told the Nucleus folks:

  • PetSafe pays for all its 700 employees to go to college if they want. There are no walls in the corporate office; everyone sits in a big open room — including Boyd, who moves his desk to a different place every year to interact with a different group of employees. Dogs, of course, are welcome at work.
  • You learn the most by listening. “Listening is a process,” he said. “It is something you must proactively do.”
  • He practices the “code of the outdoors,” which is, “Leave every place better than you found it.”
  • It’s hard to create a market. But if customers ask for a particular product or service, it will be a success. “Follow the demand,” he said.
  • “The only difference between a goal and a wish is a step-by-step plan,” he said.
  • PetSafe will always be a privately held company. “It’s so much easier to think and plan when you are a private company,” he noted.

OK. Now, about that pub. Boyd and his wife came up with the idea following a visit to Scotland. Jenny, he said, plays the fiddle. The couple were charmed by a pub in Scotland where musicians just show up and play with whomever else is there. They are replicating that pub in the former Manhattan’s space in Knoxville’s Old City. “There’s no place right now where musicians can just go play,” he said. The musical heritage of our area is Scottish, Irish, bluegrass and “old-timey” music, he said. “Music is best passed on by playing,” Boyd asserted.

The pub will open in August, he said. The bartenders will wear kilts. Anyone else who does will get their  beer for half-price.

Nucleoids

Nucleoids

Everyone wanted to ask Randy Boyd a question after his talk.

Everyone wanted to ask Randy Boyd a question after his talk.

Pete Ludman and Sara Hedstrom

Pete Ludman and Sara Hedstrom

Tierney Bates, left, and Randy Boyd

Tierney Bates, left, and Randy Boyd

Disclosures: Both PetSafe and Young-Williams Animal Center are clients of Moxley Carmichael. But I would have written this even if they weren’t! Ha. Click here to see the project we are working on right now for PetSafe. Also, Gavin Baker, quoted in this post, is director of digital media for Moxley Carmichael.

Randy Boyd appeared on Hallerin Hilton Hill‘s TV show, Anything is Possible. Click here for part one of the interview. Click here for part two. Click here for part three.

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3 Responses to Randy Boyd’s passions: pets, education and kilts!

  1. Tess, on July 7th, 2011 at 7:06 pm said:

    When they see the Bucky kilt they may change their minds! It is orange, but ugly.

  2. Greg, on July 8th, 2011 at 4:52 pm said:

    Boyd may be the “coolest” entrepreneur in America. I wonder how long it will be before he’s famous?

  3. Pingback:Blue Streak » Shakespeare, belly dancers, art and PBR

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