Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mark Golden. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Mark thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

We get to work with some of the most creative people in the world. They depend upon our work to assure that their legacy, their creativity, their story remains intact for centuries and centuries to come. Not an easy task, yet one we have always taken with great pride and dedication. There are so many industries and products that rely on their success by planned obsolescence. Few companies share the responsibility for helping to create a lasting legacy. Our mission: “To grow a sustainable company dedicated to creating and sharing the most imaginative and innovative tools of color, line and texture for inspiring those who turn their vision into reality.” Each of these words in our mission have been important to our success. To grow: Now as an 100% Employee-Owned company, this has an even greater resonance. Our responsibility to assure that our employees, our shareholders benefit from their hard work and support for each other and our efforts together. To create a sustainable company, willing to challenge itself to assure that we are looking towards the future and our responsibility to our community, our customers, all our stakeholders and our environment. Our commitment to innovation comes from the thousands of customers each year who contact us with their own ideas of how to advance the materials they work with. Our talent has been to simply listen to their needs and to respond. Finally, we recognize that in making artists colors, our process and product is just the beginning of the artists journey, that we are invited in to participate. It is a special privilege to be part of this effort with these incredibly talented artists.

Mark, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Golden Artist Colors began from the dreams and inspiration of my folks, Sam and Adele Golden. My father had been a paint maker beginning in 1936. He joined my Great Uncle, Leonard Bocour, who started his small artist oil paint company three years before. Sam retired in 1972 selling back his portion of the company to his uncle and moved to a farm in very rural, upstate, NY, that my parents purchased in 1968. My father, not being very good at retirement was convinced by his wife to call me in 1979, his youngest son to join him in beginning a new company started in their barn, in their small village of Columbus, NY. I was hoping to continue onto a career in the sciences when the opportunity came to join my dad. So in 1980 we formed Golden Artist Colors making acrylic artist colors. Sam still had some artists friends that he maintained a close relationship to. They made a list for me of artists that I should visit. Every week for 10 years, I would go down to Manhattan and visit with artists and deliver their paint. I would ask them, “if you like the paint then could I get names for other artists that I should visit,” and I would also ask a question that has continued to make the most difference for our company. “If you don’t like the paint, what would you like?” This simple question and the dedication to make custom paint for artists has led us to do work for some of the most important painters in the world.

Eventually the paints were introduced into art stores, and by word of mouth the paints spread across the country and now, the world. We continue to make custom paints for artists, yet our brands  — GOLDEN Artist Acrylics, Williamsburg Artist Oils, QoR Artist Watercolors and most recently, PanPastel Artist Pastels — are sold in 60 countries. Our R&D Lab is one of the largest in our industry with 5 chemist/formulators and a staff of 22, many of whom are artists. We have a team of artist educators and material specialists that respond to over 10,000 emails and phone calls from artists each year. This team is the only one in our industry that has provided original research into the area of artists materials, their lightfastness and permanency. In this research are the kernels of information that have allowed us to continue to innovate and create new solutions for artists.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Having grown the business from just the four of us, my parents and my wife Barbara, it was clearly attached to who I was. In 1996, I received the “Small Business Person” award given by the Small Business Administration for New York. I was committed to just two business values: to delight our customers and to provide the opportunities for growth and rewards to all our staff. We first turned a profit in 1987. In that year we also began our profit-sharing program with all our team, (about 23 people). I realized that our success was about attracting folks much more talented than myself to join the organization for all the very specific skills this growing organization needed. Coming back from that special awards event in Washington, D.C., my accountant asked if I was running a business or a hobby. I was surprised as I was just singled out from all small businesses in New York State. He went on to share that I was so leveraged as an organization that I wasn’t attending to profitability. As you can imagine, my background was not in business. I thought profitability took care of itself. Well obviously, everyone reading here, already knows it doesn’t! In 1997, we hired our first Controller, Barbara Schindler, who quickly became our Finance Director. In 2000, she shared that she felt she could help better organize the Management team. We shared a plan together, that she would run the Management meetings, and if it worked out well, she would eventually be promoted to COO and President. It took no more than a few weeks to hear from my Management team, how well it was working out. I certainly could have been deflated, but there has been nothing better that could have propelled this organization than letting go of the reins and allowing someone much more talented to direct the Operations. She still guides the organization 26 years later, allowing me to continue to help craft strategies for growth.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I remain passionate about our brand and the value it holds amongst our customers. So much of that has been instilled in the beginning of this journey. We were making paints for my fathers’ friends. And some of these folks were incredibly important artists. It was a clear responsibility to make the best materials we possibly could. Having my father as my partner, who had been a paint maker for 40 years gave me the confidence that we could deliver on that promise. As we grew, and our responsibility grew, I understood that we needed even more skilled talent to assure the products we delivered would be unsurpassed by any other brand. The second part of brand building was simply listening to the artists that I was visiting. There was no reason for an enormous brain trust back at the barn, if we simply listened to the needs that our customers expressed to us. They in turn were so delighted to have access to things they couldn’t have possibly produced on their own. As the company continued to grow, we continued to grow those resources that were seen by other companies as simply an unprofitable cost center. We saw it as an unmatched innovation center.
The third part of brand building was authenticity. To be transparent, to own up to mistakes and to always deliver on a promise. Simple things. Often not easy to do.
Finally, while most companies and leaders give lip service to the talent of their employees, we have come full circle, from first a profit sharing organization to now one that is totally owned by the staff that have made it so special.

Contact Info:

• Website: goldenpaints.com
• Other: Our media team will need to fill this in later