Sitting in a big chocolate-colored booth, Ridge takes a sip of Californian Chardonnay and starts regaling me with tales of his life as a traveling salesman.
He says he’s been to 72 countries selling the famous blue and yellow cans, two of which he has strategically placed on the lunch table. His current American Airlines travel point balance has surpassed 6 million, and he has 4 million Marriott points.
“It all started in the 1970s,” Ridge says. “I had driven from Armidale through to Narrabri in NSW and it was a really hot, hot, hot day.
“So I had these two suitcases with product I’m trying to sell, and I have walked up the street and I go into a store and this guy comes out. And he says, ‘What can I do for you?’
“I said, ‘I am Garry Ridge and I am from Quality Auto Accessories’, and the guy said, ‘You can get the f— out of here. I don’t like your company and I don’t like your boss.’”
“So I put the two bags on the floor and sat on the bags. And he said, ‘What do you think you are doing?’ and I said, ‘If you think that I have carried these two bags all the way here and you’re going to tell me to get out, well, I’m not leaving here until at least you look at what I have in these cases.’”
The store manager responded by telling Ridge he could sit there all night for all he cared. Ridge did sit there for about an hour. When the store manager finally came back, he told Ridge to get a case of beer.
Ridge at his mother’s home in Sydney’s inner west suburb of Five Dock in 2009. Peter Braig
“I said, ‘No problem.’ I go across the road and get a case of beer. I come back. We sit down and have a couple of beers and start talking, and two hours later, I walk out with the biggest order that we’ve ever got from the area.”
As he finishes the anecdote, a big bowl of truffle fries is placed in the middle of the table and Ridge claws at them like an eagle. His fish tacos from him, glistening primary colors, arrive. He neatly arranges them, noting that there is nothing more Southern Californian than his meal from him.
Ridge might be surrounded by Americans and their culture, but he has not lost a gram of his Australian-ness. He grew up in Sydney’s inner west, worked for retailer Waltons and attended Sydney Tech College. He went on to work for Hawker Pacific, which owned the license for WD-40 in Australia, and then joined WD-40 in 1987 as managing director for Australia. He transferred to the US in 1994 as director of international operations, and was appointed chief executive in 1997.
“When I was first given the opportunity to lead WD-40, I was described by Forbes magazine as the ‘one-time traveling salesman from Australia’,” Ridge says.
His loyalty to one company could have something to do with Ridge’s parents. His father, a fitter and turner, worked for one company, which was owned by Westinghouse, for 50 years.
Home is never far away
His accent is still strong; he thinks this might be due to his listening habits of him.
“I listen to Australian breakfast radio every day. I drive home in the afternoon when it’s morning in Australia. I love the Australian culture. I love the Australian point of view. I love the way Australians reflect on things differently to the American culture.
“If I come up to you, as my friend in Australia, and I say, ‘Matt, will you do me a favour?’ Matt would say, ‘Yeah, what is it?’ But if I ask someone here, ‘Can you do me a favour?’ they say, ‘What is it?’, not, ‘Yeah’.”
Those differences in attitude have meant that Ridge had to adapt and evolve his leadership over the decades. He says he’s gone from being the blunt, tough Aussie to more conciliatory and understanding.
“My leadership style has changed over time. In the early days I was the ‘be brief, be bright and be gone’ leadership style. I didn’t understand the need to have people in an organization that were passionate about what they’re doing.
“For example, I do get really frustrated when people don’t do what they say they’re going to do. In the early days, I would have been really in their face, and say, ‘you have no right to do that’. Back then, I was more aggressive about it. Today, I would handle it differently. Now I would be more coaching about it.”
As well as managing people, Ridge has had to learn other skills.
“When the board of directors decided that I should be the CEO, to lead this public company, I’d never even been to Wall Street. I didn’t understand public markets. I was scared.
“I knew that our dream was to take the blue and yellow can with the red top to the world. But I said, ‘How are we going to do that?’ So, I had to go back to school to learn what I didn’t know.”
He completed a master’s degree in executive leadership at the Knauss School of Business at the University of San Diego, where, in his spare time, he is now an adjunct professor specializing in corporate culture.
Ridge takes another sip of the cool wine. He has a 1000-bottle home cellar, but, strangely, he loves a cheap Lindeman’s white.
The man in charge
“I was described by Forbes magazine as the ‘one time traveling salesman from Australia’,” says Ridge. Nick Moir
The day before we meet, I received a bottle of Penfolds as a gift from a long-term investor, GCQ Funds Management chief investment officer Doug Tynan, one of the few Australian businessmen Ridge has known for more than a decade.
“Meeting Garry for the first time was unforgettable,” Tynan recalls. “The first time I visited the old WD-40 headquarters there wasn’t even carpet on parts of the office floor!”
The restaurant has suddenly filled up and become so loud that there is a chance the interview recording might be difficult to understand, so we huddle in a bit like a coach with a player. Above us are pictures of prized horses; they remind me that Ridge rode into Times Square in 2003.
The idea was inspired by Richard Branson’s 1994 stunt, when he drove a tank into the famous location to crush Coca-Cola cans as a way to mark the launch of Virgin Cola. So for WD-40’s 50th anniversary, Ridge dressed up as a knight in shining armor symbolically protecting the secret formula for WD-40.
One of the biggest costs for WD-40 – about $US3 million a year – is the maintenance and protection of the company’s trademarks. At the San Diego headquarters are floor-to-ceiling shelves full of spray cans. They are divided into three categories: the first is WD-40 cans since the company began, the second is all WD-40’s competing brands over the ages, and the third is all the counterfeit WD-40 cans seized from around the world.
Remarkably, when Ridge visited a factory in China where fakes were being made, he was told they had a letter approving the manufacture. Ridge asked to see the letter and what they produced before him was a decades-old forgery of his signature.
“We have private investigators who go out into the market and identify the cans; once they’re identified, we then link them up with our enforcement people. And we have to then go to the local law enforcement, they will go in and they’ll raid that warehouse. What we’re trying to do is swim upstream to find the bigger fake manufacturer. It can just be a guy in his garage with an aerosol filling machine. Some of them go to jail.”
The current climate
Ridge recalls being one of the first people to bring a can of WD-40 into China.
“That was back in the ’80s, when the competing product in China then was dirty diesel oil, ignorance and a hammer,” he laughs, before saying how much he respects the Chinese people and their incredible growth story.
“I have a lot of very, very close and treasured Chinese friends. I think the Chinese are some of the hardest working, most honest people I’ve ever seen.
“But how their government is doing things may be different. What does the leadership of China want? I don’t know. I mean, I could guess. Look back in history, from the Romans to Hitler to what’s happening in Russia.”
Ridge is nervous about the current economic situation in America. He’s had to deal with a 40-year high in inflation – when he had to pass on prices and keep them there – without engaging in any so-called shrinkflation. “We’re going to talk ourselves into a recession, there’s no doubt about it,” he says.
We have finished our food and decide upon the very un-American option of tea.
The conversation shifts back to his family.
“I don’t really have a best friend here other than my wife,” he says.
He has two children from his first marriage: a son, Peter, aged 41, who is a senior director of sales at Adidas; and a daughter, Kate, 38, who was a professional dancer until a back injury forced a change of career – she’s now a teacher.
Ridge has just bought a tract of land in Kauai, Hawaii, where he is building a dream home.
“The reason I like it is that it’s 10 hours to Australia and six hours to the US. It has a lot of nature, and there is a lot of hiking.”
Ridge says he is not retiring and wants to help businesses improve their leadership. His successor is the company’s president and chief operating officer, Steve Brass, with whom he has worked for 30 years. Ridge says he still has so much to offer and doesn’t want to leave anything on the table.
His mother lived until she was 99 years and nine months old, so he could have plenty of time.
“I have a lot more I want to achieve. Life is a gift, don’t leave it unwrapped.”
bill
Residence, 5951 Skyline, Rancho Santa Fe, California
Truffle fries, $US15
Burger, $US25
Tacos, $US26
2 glasses GL Tyler Chardonnays, $US30
Latte coffee, $US8
Tea, $US6
Total: $US110 ($160)