Bio
This autobiographical background of me will give you an idea of who I am, where I come from, and where I want to help in taking this country to a prosperous 21st century. I want to be a key part for the following generation’s aspirations to achieve their goals, living in a free enterprise system, where hard work, determination, and moral guidance will lead to success, both in their lives and for our nation.
Before I begin, I want to tell you I am an American citizen first and an Independent Republican who wants the opportunity for the citizens in this beloved country of ours to prosper and with your help I will fight for all of us.
I was born to Robert and Alice Goodwin of Benton Harbor Michigan on January 16, 1947. I had a very American childhood growing up with my four brothers and one sister. My father was a factory worker and my mother stayed at home to raise their six children. We had a good life, not many frills but we never went without the basics. We did have riches that have no price and that was the true love from our mother and father. We also had a larger family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that were very close knit and gave all of us a good understanding of how the different cross sections of people were all good, even if there views of the world were different than what we believed.
My father was always a union worker and when it came to voting, he taught me about the people running for office and what they stood for, was more important than a political party. I believe that to this very day. A person’s heart felt dedication to improving lives where he can, is much more important that a political platform but secondly the platform is what gives the individual the goals.
I graduated from Benton Harbor High School in 1965 and I was an average student who majored in History and English. History gave me a good basis for understanding how our country and the world operated over time. I guess that is where I started to be interested in how these systems in the past and present came to be and the difficulties in establishing these governments.
After High School I joined the US Air Force in February 1966. It was my family’s belief when the nation calls you respond and my four brothers and myself all enlisted for duty. I was an Aircraft Electrical Repairman Specialist and worked on KC-135 Tankers, B-52 Bombers, and SR-71 Black Bird Reconnaissance Aircraft. During my tour of duty I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan supporting the Viet Nam War from combat tanker and bomber squadrons.
While in the Air Force, I became reacquainted with a high school classmate Merilea Ballard and in 1968 we were married and after 40 years we still are happily married. We have two wonderful children Debbie (Goodwin) Ballard and Michael Goodwin. They have given us four beautiful grand children; Debbie and her husband Dan gave us three Natalie, Nicole, and Greg. Mike and his wife Michelle gave us one, Dylan. They are true joys in our lives.
After leaving the Air Force we moved back to Michigan where I began working at Whirlpool Corporation, first in the data processing center then in research and engineering center. I began researching materials and processes in the microelectronic field. During that time I was taking classes at Bell and Howell Technical School, which is now Devry Institute of Technology, in Chicago. I accomplished the research mission, for Whirlpool, and developed a manufacturing process and transferred it to Nashville, where I began my love for this great state of Tennessee, which was in 1980. I am an avid Bass fisherman, so what better place to move than this beautiful state of Tennessee where the lakes are plentiful and this fishing is great. I also fished in the B.A.S.S. Federation for a number of years. I still squeeze in a local tournament when I can.
After some time Whirlpool began buying electronics outside the company and I saw the hand writing on the wall, so I moved into a different position with Northern Telecom (Nortel) where I was the Senior Process Engineer in one of the largest microelectronics facilities there was. While I was there, I was responsible for the manufacturing processes, prototyping, and development programs.
While I was there, my wife’s father developed brain cancer and she wanted to move closer to him in Michigan. I took a job with Phillips Electronics Corporation at their Phillips Circuit Systems Plant in West Lafayette Indiana, not to far from where her father lived. Unfortunately he passed away while in that job transition.
This was in November 1984 and while working at Phillips, I began to see the change in the American industries mentality on how business operates. The change was, instead of long term growth and be the best your company could be; it became a free for all for acquisitions of other companies. The resources of companies were channeled to acquisitions of competitors instead of building the current company’s expertise in their field. That trend is continuing today with much greater impact to the people who work for a living in this nation.
Instead of practicing my expertise in the microelectronic field, I was in charge of consolidation and redistribution of assets of that corporation. I was closing plants and consolidating operations in other facilities around the country. I believed, at the time, it was the right thing to do to stay competitive with the Far East’s influx of electronics into the United States markets. It was not a pleasant job shutting down plants that have been in business for years. After about two years living on an airplane, going all over this nation, it was time for me to spend more time with the family and I was offered a job working for a company called Bel Fuse, Inc.
Once again I began practicing my expertise in microelectronics process engineering. I really enjoyed getting back to my true desires in this field. This company’s division I worked at was called CAC Microcircuits and it was one of the most talented groups of engineers, technicians, and production personnel I ever had the pleasure of working with. The abilities of this group were far and above any other company I had worked for in the past. It was located in the farming areas of Southern Illinois and Southern Indiana and those people had the work ethic that America was built and maintained on, hard work for the betterment of all.
Being that Bel Fuse was an international corporation, I began seeing the transition of the expertise to their Chinese facilities. I was very involved with building a parallel microelectronic production facility, first in Hong Kong and then in Macau. At first it seemed okay because these facilities were to service our Far East customers but after some time I began to see a new direction. As new projects came on board the engineering was done at CAC Microcircuits but the production of our work was being taken over to the Chinese operations. This continued until we had to shut down the production operations here and all production was sent over to China. The engineering group, which I was Manager of Process Engineering, was then sent to Indianapolis, where we developed the programs for our overseas production facilities.
I was involved with these transfers to China but I had a real problem with our technology being handed over to the Chinese on a silver platter. The company with the assistance of our government, through tax incentives, gave this company, along with many other American companies, the green light to move our entire industrial base of the United States overseas. With the short sighted bottom line mentality permeating throughout this nation’s business leaders, and with little to no regard to what was being done to the economic future of the United States of America, US operations were shut down and shipped to China crippling this nations manufacturing base.
With me not wanting to be involved with the transfer of our nation’s industrial base, the next round of force reduction in the engineering department, my position was eliminated. Not to long after I was gone, they shut down the entire engineering group and shipped it to China. It all came to an end for me in June of 2001.
I then did some consulting work and then I started my own trucking company, Goodwin Express Inc. I initially ran my trucks out of Shelbyville Tennessee. After some issues with the company my trucks were running out of, I moved the company to Indianapolis Indiana, where I was living. The company was doing well until two major things happened. The first was the government reduced the amount of time the drivers could operate my trucks and the second was the cost of fuel went up dramatically. This stressed my company to a point where I could not operate it at a profit. Thinking things were going to turn around for it, I continued to pump my own money in it in hopes of that turn around. Well, it never happened and I had to close it down, this was in 2006. The end result of this was I had put so much of my own money into it not only did I loose my business but I personally had to go bankrupt and lost everything, including my home.
For about twenty five years prior to this personal disaster and continuing to this day, I have studied the economics behind our political system for my knowledge of what direction this country was taking and to the overall effect it was having and what was going to have in the future for this great nation of ours. In 2005 I published an essay “The US Becoming a Third World Working Class Is Imminent” on the Web and the response from it is how I decided to write my weekly newsletter. I report on economic issues confronting this nation that you won’t see in the main stream media. It is called “Greg’s Newsletter – Keeping The American Middle Class Informed.” If you wish to receive this free newsletter just email me through this website or gregmer@comcast.net.
Then in 2006 I moved back to Tennessee. My son Mike set me up with people he knew in business and I have been here ever since. I currently work with two small businesses that have two totally different enterprises. One is an individual that buys and sells homes and has several rental properties which I help manage. The other company is a commercial landscape construction and maintenance company which I have assisted in organizational and promotional programs for the company. They are both very good small businesses that are trying to keep their head above water, in this current economy. They will succeed because of their commitment to their businesses and there understanding of small business.
These two companies along with tens of thousands of other small businesses are the real backbone of our economy. The entrepreneurs in this nation will be the way we get out of this financial crisis, so the more all facets of our economy can support these people who take chances on free enterprise and succeed, the better off we all will be. It is not the government or these huge conglomerate international corporations that have the answer, it is us the innovated and risk taking entrepreneurs that have the long term stability for our economy, this country so badly needs.
I truly believe when the dust settles on this financial disaster, the opportunities for the innovation of the American people will have their day in the spotlight. It is up to all of us to do our part to better this nation individually and not look to government to fix anything. It will be my personal commitment to do everything I can to promote the innovation of the people of this great nation of ours. When it happens, look out world, once again the American people will show the way to personal and financial prosperity.
Thank you and your support will be honored by me, for we must show the world, once again, what the American people are made of. Let us all be a part of a new (old) beginning, that has our people be the focus of furthering the American dreams.
The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and a true free enterprise system is what made this country great and they are the way that will get us out of these current problems. Political parties should be following these documents and guidelines for a free enterprise system, which has made this the greatest nation in world history. The messages they send are not evolving documents or market controlled capitalism, they are the documents and guidelines that have kept our nation free and represent the will of the people, not the will of the government or huge international corporate conglomerates.
God Bless the United States of America
Greg Goodwin