Called to a Different Purpose
The Story of Robert Fulton and His Vision for Web Industries
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Foreword – A Company’s True Wealth
Sometimes, just one statistic can drive a point home...
Consider this data point for Web Industries: as of September 30, 2017, Web’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) created thirty-seven millionaires, seventeen of whom are non-management, the others now mid-level managers.
For a company that started in 1969—with slender seed-money and a prayer, this is a remarkable thing. It rests in a founder’s belief that “the people I hired are the ones who have run the company. They make things happen.”
We may put it another way: a company’s true wealth rests in the men and women who’ve made it a success.
Web Industries stands testament to that, and has from the start.
* * *
Consider the story of Rob Zicaro.
In 1989, twenty years after Web was founded, Rob started out as a machine assistant. After four years, he moved into a front line team leader/supervisor role for the rest of his career with Web. He studied for two academic degrees during this time, and through Web’s ground-breaking ESOP paradigm, earned “enough wealth to retire early,” and get back to his first passion: music. “I now have the resources,” Rob has said, “to focus full-time on my music and songwriting.”
And he has been doing just that, since December 2015.
* * *
How does a firm that began by producing small rolls of coated copy paper become a $200 million dollar company on the eve of its 50th Anniversary?
We may look to Web’s employee owners.
But they would be the first to point to something more.
It all began with the faith of Robert A. Fulton, the company’s founder.
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About the Book
The defining trait of the story that began with Robert Fulton is not just the creation of a good company in 1969 that has since become highly successful. What sets this story apart is his lifelong relationship with Jesus Christ and how honoring God was central to all his decisions. From the start, it called for a different kind of company culture—rooted in his faith-based principles that looked to the inherent value of each person and developing their God-given potential. That has become a hallmark of Web Industries in the fifty years of its existence.
Robert Fulton shaped his company’s culture believing that relationships are the very essence of life. He implemented an employee stock ownership plan because he believed the people who worked alongside him to build the company’s value should share in that value. These employee-owners are at the heart of why this company has won a place of great influence and respect in the corporate world.
About the Author
Kevin Belmonte holds a BA in English Literature from Gordon College, an MA in Church History from Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and a second master's degree in American and New England Studies from the University of Southern Maine.
He has twice been a Finalist for the John Pollock Award for Christian Biography, and in 2003, he won that award for his biography of William Wilberforce. His other books include literary biographies of G.K. Chesterton and John Bunyan, and in 2014 his widely acclaimed biography, D.L. Moody, was hailed as a "New & Noteworthy Book" by Christianity Today.
For several years, his biography of Wilberforce has been required reading for a course on character and leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. On several occasions, he has served as a script consultant for the BBC, and also for the PBS documentary, The Better Hour. For six years, he was the lead script and historical consultant for the critically-acclaimed film, Amazing Grace, working closely with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Steven Knight.
He has spoken in a wide array of noteworthy settings, from the Houses of Parliament in London, and gatherings of legislators in Washington, D.C., to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He and his wife Kelly reside in a seaside village in Maine, with their son, Sam.