Our American Stories continues with a powerful installment from our “Do the Right Thing” series, proudly sponsored by the Daniels Fund. Today, we meet Steve Bell, a young husband and father in 1979 who faced tough times when a recession hit his construction career. Forced to strike out on his own, Steve found unexpected success building dental offices, quickly growing his business. But his world was about to be turned upside down. A shocking phone call revealed his trusted dentist client was arrested for drug smuggling, entangled in organized crime, leaving Steve blindsided by a web of deception.
Suddenly plunged into massive debt from the scandal, Steve Bell faced an agonizing ethical dilemma: file for bankruptcy as advised by his attorney, or find another way. With two small children and another on the way, the financial hardship seemed insurmountable. But Steve remembered his father’s profound lessons about integrity and how “your word is your bond.” Faced with seemingly impossible choices, he decided to trust in an unconventional path, holding onto his personal responsibility and the belief that doing the right thing, even when difficult, could lead to a different outcome. Join us as Steve shares his incredible journey of rebuilding trust and proving the enduring power of American values.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
In 1979, Steve Bell was married, had a child, and his father-in-law had to let him go from his construction firm because of the recession. So I hung out my shanle, you know, well, we’ll work for food type thing, and my plumber introduced me to a dentist. He introduced me, and I went up and I started remodeling his home on a time and materials basis, and he introduced me to his buddy that owned a dental supply company. One thing led to another, and I became a tenant improvement contractor building dental offices, and so I had eventually seven or eight guys working for me. I was twenty-nine years old, and I thought I was God’s gift to the world of business. And one morning, about eight o’clock in the morning, I get a phone call from my attorney, and he said, “Steve, are you sitting down?” And I go, “Yeah.” He said, “Did you read the newspaper this morning?” I go, “No, I don’t get the newspaper,” and he goes, “Well, you better pick up a copy of today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, because your dentist buddy is on the front page. He just got arrested up in Vancouver, British Columbia, with a briefcase full of cocaine.”
Well, our world quickly came crashing down. These two guys were involved in a drug smuggling ring with organized crime. And I was so naive. My parents were dead-honest people. I never in my whole life heard my dad tell a lie. Well, that was a rude awakening, and I found out that these two guys had been pulling a bunch of shenanigans. I remember getting a call in the middle of the night that someone had broke into one of their dental offices and burglarized it and vandalized it, and so I was called on to go and put it all back together. Well, later I found out that they had done that because they got short on cash to the Mafia, and so they staged a robbery of their own dental office, fenced the stolen goods in Chicago, and hired me to put everything back together.
Well, about the time that this all happened, I was pretty young. We had two small children and a third one on the way. Life was pretty desperate. They owed me at that time over 100,000 dollars. This was in 1980, over 318,000 dollars in today’s money, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. My attorney and my accountant got me together, and I remember sitting at this big conference table, and they looked at me and they said, “Steve, you’ve just simply been had. We don’t think anyone would hold it against you. You have, but you really have no choice except to file bankruptcy. There’s no way that you can ever pay this debt off.” I remember looking at them and I said, “You know, it doesn’t look good. I know it doesn’t look good. But I’ve been reading my Bible. There’s a verse in Philippians 4:19 that says, ‘My God will supply all your need according to his richest and glory through Christ.’ Now I’m not blaming God for the mess I’m in, but I’m sure going to rely on him to get me out. And maybe you’re right, maybe I’ll have to do this. But before I go down that road, I’m going to try it my way.”
I remember back growing up, my dad, from the time I was a toddler, my dad would teach me to be a man on my word. I remember him telling me, “Your word is your bond.” I didn’t even know what a bond was, but it must have been something important. And then I remember him sitting me down in our basement of our home in Gladstone, Oregon. I was seventeen, about to graduate from high school, and he said, “Steve, you’re going to graduate from high school soon, and you’re going to go on and experience life, and my direct influence in your life is going to become less and less.” That wasn’t really true, but maybe that was a lot. Maybe that was a lot. No, my influence in you is going to become less and less. “But I want you to know that there’s only one thing you can carry through your entire life, and that’s your good name. Learn to protect it at all costs, because every single day of your life, you’re going to be faced with choices, and every single choice you make has a consequence, good or bad. And what you become at the end of your life is the sum total of every single one of those choices. So learn to choose well.”
As I was going through this difficult time in 1980, I kept thinking about the choices I had to make. “Learn to choose well.” So I ended up writing a letter to every single person I owed money too, and following up with a personal visitor phone call, explaining to them exactly what happened. Taking full responsibility, I admitted my culpability in my own naivity and lack of business experience, and told them that all I could offer them was my good name, and if they would trust me and give me some grace, I would pay them every dime with interest. I wasn’t asking for a dime of discount. All I was asking for is time to let me pay them on my terms, not theirs. And I remember the attorney looking at me, shaking his head, saying, “Son, son, son, you just don’t realize this is not the way the world works. Within a month, you’ll have a dozen lawsuits it filed against you. Bill collectors will be hounding your wife day and night, and your life is going to become a living hell.” I said, “Life’s already a living hell. And maybe you’re right, but I’m still going to try it my way.” And well, those were. I’d come home and I was feeling lower than low. And, you know, my wife came from a not a wealthy family, but certainly a blessed family, and I felt like I was not worthy of her. I had failed miserably as a businessperson, and all the bills just kept mounting up, and I was struggling to get the work to stay ahead and pay everybody. And I remember just laying on the floor, just telling her that she deserved better than me, and she got down on the floor with me. It just helped me and said, “Steve, I believe in you, and God will provide for us.” And the very next day, went out to the mailbox, and there was a check from the IRS for 2,500 dollars. It was a refund from something. I don’t even know what it was from. I wasn’t expecting it. I had no idea it was coming. But it literally got us through that month, and I think got us through Christmas that season. And God has always provided, even when it’s—it just seems so impossible to hang on at times, but you just have to. If you’re going to make it in business in life, you just can’t quit. You just have to keep going and keep going and keep going. But I don’t understand it. It’s one of the mysteries of why does that story hit me like it does, even to this day. It’s forty years ago. There’s just something really deep inside, and I appreciate it. I love it. I would be disappointed if it ever went away.
And you’re listening to Steve Bell tell his story about a business catastrophe. When we come back, we continue with Steve Bell. His story continues here on Our American Stories.
And we continue with our American Stories and with Steve Bell’s story for our “Do the Right Thing” series, sponsored by the great folks at the Daniels Fund. After having been stiffed for $318,000 in today’s dollars terms for construction work, Steve was determined to pay back almost the same amount to all of the vendors and contractors who had helped him, and he thought that his best shot was to focus on cabinet-making. Let’s return to Steve.
I had met with an elder at one of our church I was going to, who had had a successful career in the trucking industry, and I remember having coffee with him, asking him what should I do, and he said, “Steve, these are times when you have to compartmentalize. Take all of that bad debt and put it in a bucket, and go to every one of your suppliers and tell them that the only chance you have of paying them off is if you can stay in business, and promise that if they’ll allow you to stay in business, you will absolutely stay current on every single current bill. You will never get past due on anything, and then you’ll be allowed to chip away at the old stuff.” And so I got tunnel vision. I had to make X amount of money every month to chip away at the old stuff. It’s very simple. You spend less than you bring in. And if you’re not willing to discipline yourself to spend less than you make, you’re going to get in trouble. We tore up our credit cards. I didn’t have any credit cards for three years. Took us scissors and whacked them all up. And if we didn’t have money in the bank, they didn’t buy it. Carolyn went to Goodwill, Salvation Army, and Value Village, and got closed for our kids. We just made it through. We just did what we had to do. We had three small kids at the time, and, you know, I can—if you asked my children what it was like. I don’t think any of them would have recollection of us being poor or doing without, but they will have recollection of me working a lot. I just found a letter that my daughter had written to my mother back in the late ’80s, telling that my dad was working twelve hours a day, and I was an amazing letter to find. But I always made time for them. I always came home for dinner, and I read to him at night. I made sure I could tuck them in bed, and then I’d go back to work. But we just made sure we spent time. That’s all they wanted was time—valuable time.
When I was going through those hard times, if I didn’t have any money to pay them, I’ve got—I’ve called them, explained it. So every single month, everybody I owed money to heard from me, either in the form of a check or a phone call. And it took me six and a half years. I not remember. In 1988, I paid off the final bill. Not one person ever filed a lawsuit against me. Still in business and stronger than ever, thieves Bellmont Cabinets helped establish frameless European-style cabinets in the U.S., and today are one of the industry leaders. So I’ve dealt with the people that owed me money. Probably in my lifetime, I could count on less than two hands number of people that owed me money that did what I did, which is pay it back incrementally. In 2010, I had probably a million dollars a bad debt written off to me that I couldn’t collect on. I can’t tell you how many people have owed us money, and then they just go silent. And if people would just communicate, we’ll work with him till the end of the day. But I remember one guy in particular, he owed me about eighty thousand dollars, and he called me up and he just said, “Steve, I’m so sorry. I just—I’m so sorry. Everything’s getting taken away from me. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t—I can’t make it right.” And I remember writing him a letter and for giving him the debt. I said, “Steve, I’m going to write this thing off, and I’m not going to charge it against your account.” And well, that person—he called, number one, it’s another one of those moments—but he called me up, weeping in appreciation, and his recommendation has brought me so much more business over the last fifteen years. And I could have ever gotten out of him. I could list about a half a dozen accounts, good-paying accounts that I had right now that we’re all brought to me by this one individual. You just have to do what’s right. You have to love people, because ultimately, people want to do business with people they trust. It doesn’t matter what the law says, it doesn’t matter what government says. People gravitate to people they trust and people who keep their word, and that will always be a higher standard than whatever lawful standard there might be out there. Our tagline in our businesses: “It will do what’s right for you.” And in the forty years that I’ve been in business, we have never gone to litigation with a customer. I was a member of the CASEMA Kitchen Cabinet Manufactural Association for many, many years, and I would hear horror stories about all the lawsuits that we’re out there. So for anyone to have been in business for forty years with three hundred and seventy employees and doing millions and millions of dollars revenue, not to have gone to court, I think, is pretty rare. In fact, every banker, every business advisor I’ve ever talked to, has commented on how rare that actually is. We just make sure that we take care of people, even when we’re not at fault. We just take care of people. God loves cabinets, and that sounds funny, but God loves what we do with the cabinets. Every single one of our suppliers gets to pay their employees and pay their suppliers. Every one of our customers gets to sell our product and earn a living, a honest, worthwhile living. By selling our products and taking care of customers, are end. Customers get to feed their families at beautiful kitchens, and our employees get to have pride and dignity in the value of work. Work is a blessing and a gift from God, and through our hard work, He takes pleasure in our efforts. That’s how—that’s how we demonstrate the creativity that God put into us. He created us in his image. He was a creative God, and we have creativity as a result of that. And so when we use that creativity to advance His kingdom and make the world a better place, I’m sure that He smiles.
And a special thanks to Monty Montgomery for the production, and to Alex Cortez for bringing us the story and putting it together. And also a special thanks to Steve Bell for sharing his story with us. My goodness! Who had not been in litigation for forty years of business. What a testimony to the character of this business! Steve Bell’s story is “do the right things” story. Here on Our American Stories.
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