Lowell Gibson – NiceBadge

Grants Pass VIP Podcast

Born in Grants Pass, Lowell Gibson has run NiceBadge in town for the past 20 years. An active member in the local community, Lowell took sometime this summer to talk with our host Brian Pombo about the challenges NiceBadge has faced since the start of COVID-19 and how they've adjusted. A big thank you to Lowell for being on the show and for being our first interview on the podcast. Checkout NiceBadge ➡️https://www.nicebadge.com/ Transcription Brian: Lowell Gibson is president of NiceBadge. A 5th generation Southern Oregonian. A missionary kid raised in Japan 14 years. The chair of BR&E, VP of Gospel Rescue Mission Foundation Board. Treasurer of the SOREDI Board. He loves Southern Oregon and his community. Loves riding his Harley, fly fishing on the Rogue, golfing, floating the Rogue. He's also extremely pro business. I'm very happy to have him here today on the Grants Pass VIP podcast. Thanks for coming on Lowell. Lowell: Thanks Brian. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Brian: So who are you and where would people know you from? Lowell: Lol. I don't think I've been on the wanted posters in the post office lately, so that's good. I bought the business here in 2000. I was born here, then I raised in Japan, came back for a while, left to go to college. Finally came back in 2000, bought the business and I've been here since. I think the community that it is we all get to know each other in different circles. Within the business community. I've been involved with the chamber with a lot of pro business and economic development organizations, of course, Rotary and a few other places like that. Brian: Why Grants Pass of all places in the world? You moved back here in 2000, why here? Lowell: The simple answer is, I like Grants Pass. It's my hometown. It's a good place to raise a family. I was up in the Salem area, and just the weather up there is a little bit gray. It may not necessarily rain, but you know, down here, it's either going to rain on you or the sun shines out and I kind of like that. And like I said, it was a great place to raise my kids. And it's a small community so you get to know a lot of people. You know, there's a lot of good in that. Brian: Tell me a little bit about why you bought this business? Lowell: Yeah, I used to be in the restaurant business. I own the restaurant and heating and cooling, I sold insurance for a while. This business was owned by my mom. She had bought it in 85. And by 2000, she had grown it to a business that had about 13 employees and she was wanting to retire. I was looking for something different to do at the time. She said, "why don't you to take a look at it, see if it's something you'd like." So I did and of course, moving back to Grants Pass really appealed to me. So I bought the business, moved my family back down here and my mom retired. Here it is, you know, 20 years later still here. Brian: You've been doing this for 20 years. Is it an industry or a position that you recommend to others at all? Lowell: Wow. So when I bought the business is much smaller, the company was, and we make name badges. It's bulk of our business, but we do other things like promotional products and signage and sandblasting. There is definitely a lot of that being done around the country. With the internet, we were able to start selling nationally a little bit easier with our website and you know, using SEO. To grow it, you have to have a lot of customers because what we're selling is smaller items. So we have over 40,000 business customers across the country. And it takes that many just to do the volume we do and keep 27 people employed. It's doable. I think the hardest part is to grow it from nothing….like my mom, she took it from nothing, you know, one employee, part time employee to 16 employees. That was probably the hardest part of the company, that initial growth phase. For me,