Retired CEO hobnobs to give community causes a boost

Most retired executives keep mementos from their time atop the corporate ladder.

Ron Doggett has many of the usual ones in the office of his plush Raleigh home: framed magazine covers and newspaper articles, awards and plaques and various products with the Slim Jim logo.

What's more unusual: In his suit coat, he also keeps a pocketful of Slim Jims, ready to share the meat snacks he helped make for more than three decades, snacks that made him wealthy.

"It's sort of his calling card," says his daughter, Anne Davis.

He remains passionate about Slim Jims although he retired as CEO of GoodMark Foods in 1999. Since then, Doggett has used his corporate contacts and skills at raising money to help a range of worthy causes, including the Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, N.C. Museum of Art and others. He's now helping run WakeMed's $20 million Just for Kids Kampaign, raising money for Wake County's first children's hospital.

"When he believes in something, he's a great advocate for the product," says Bill Atkinson, CEO of WakeMed. "He is not only a businessman in the traditional sense - taking a business and making it work. His heart's in it."

Doggett, 75, grew up poor as the son of a Minnesota dairy farmer. He repeatedly taught his four children the importance of giving back to the community, explaining that everyone deserves food, clothing, shelter and medical care.

The fun in fundraising

He especially enjoys appealing to local executives and other rich friends for contributions.

"I know a lot of people in the community," says Doggett, who speaks with a calm, patriarchal manner. "I call someone like [former Raleigh Mayor] Smedes York and they'll say 'What do you want today, Ron?' They often owe me one."

Doggett is often out the door by 7 a.m., just as he was when he ran GoodMark and its Slim Jim factory in Garner. He has served on the boards of many nonprofit agencies and is a director at several local companies, including Goodberry Creamery.

He's also an executive in residence at N.C. State University's College of Management.

Not that he doesn't enjoy retirement. He gardens, walks, reads and spends time with Jeanette, his wife of 48 years, his four grown children and 10 grandchildren, all of whom live in the area.

During a recent family portrait at the Cardinal Club in downtown Raleigh, he bribed several grandchildren with Slim Jims if they would behave for the photo. He also keeps a container of the snacks on his desk for when they visit.

"He doesn't spoil them with big things," Davis says, "but he can make them smile with Slim Jims."

Three jobs in college

His love of the meat sticks goes back to his college years, when he worked three jobs to pay for school. At night, after his shift driving a school bus, he would go to a bar to drink one glass of beer and eat a Slim Jim.

After a stint in the Army, Doggett was the first in his family to attend college. Growing up without much helped make him humble yet driven, Davis says.

"He knows poor. He was the kid who went to school with hardboiled eggs in his pockets to keep his hands warm," she adds. "His dream was to own a company and drive a Mercedes."

After earning an undergraduate business degree from Minnesota State University in 1961, he joined food giant General Mills. In 1968 he accepted an assignment helping run its Slim Jim plant in Philadelphia. He relocated to the Triangle the following year after General Mills bought the Jesse Jones Sausage Co. in Garner, moved Slim Jim production there and renamed the business GoodMark Foods.

In 1982, Doggett and three partners bought GoodMark from General Mills. They came up with $50,000 in cash and $15 million in loans backed by nearly everything he owned as collateral.

Doggett beefed up Slim Jim advertising using country singers, professional wrestlers and NASCAR sponsorships. Sales increased steadily. He bought out his partners and took the company public in 1985. In 1998, he sold the company to ConAgra Foods for $225 million and retired a year later when he turned 65.

"In school, I learned to select a business or product that you can identify with," Doggett says. "It's a great product. They're just so darn good."

A 'sweet, gentle spirit'

He's disappointed by ConAgra's decision to close the Slim Jim plant in Garner next year, shift production to Ohio and lay off hundreds of local workers. He attended a reunion of GoodMark employees in June and says he still hears from workers' children who tell him they probably wouldn't have gone to college if not for their parents' paychecks and the scholarships Doggett sponsored.

"He's a very aggressive businessman, but he also has this soft, sweet, gentle spirit," says Billie Redmond, CEO of Coldwell Banker Commercial TradeMark Properties in Raleigh, who has known Doggett for about 20 years. "That's not very common in a driven business person. He'll remember the names of your children."

That's not to say those traits symbolize weakness, she adds.

"He has definite ideas and opinions, and he's willing to do his homework to back up his positions," Redmond says. "I've seen him be the lone vote on something. That's a strength of character."

Doggett doesn't shy from challenges. The weak economy has made his philanthropic efforts harder.

"Everyone is very cautious now, less confident about their wealth," he says. "Portfolio values have declined substantially."

A personal obstacle: Doggett was diagnosed with Parkinson's 12 years ago. "It doesn't slow me down very much," he says. "I've been very fortunate. It doesn't hold me back from what I want to do."

Gardening as therapy

He walks every day, and loves to travel, play golf, fish and hunt. An avid gardener, Doggett enjoys propagating the various plants around his house: trumpets, day lilies, hydrangeas, peonies. He is often called on to be his children's freelance landscaper.

"I love to see things grow," he says. "Gardening is great therapy."

When asked what legacy he'd like to leave, Doggett doesn't mention Slim Jims.

"I would hope they remember me as a good citizen, good father and good family man, someone who tried to contribute to the community," Doggett says.

That doesn't stop him from handing out Slim Jims to anyone who asks and to some who don't. And his loyalties are clear when he drives off in his Mercedes: His license plate still reads "GOODMARK."