The Mel Kay Story

Mel Kay is a man to be admired. He is a real life example of someone who has achieved the American dream. His is a tale of a self made man who was a success due to his tenacity and backbone. Although he was born poor and wasn’t able to receive a lengthy education due to his life circumstances, he didn’t let that stop him from becoming highly successful.

Kay was born to what turned into a farming family in the early 1940’s. His dad and mom moved from Oklahoma to California where they worked in almond orchards, tomato fields and with fruit harvesting crews. His father died fairly young and his mother was an Italian immigrant who never learned to operate an automobile. Mel started his life as a hard worker and this trait has continued throughout his life. He began to pick crops at the age of seven. His family moved so often that he attended over a dozen schools before dropping out. At age sixteen, he withdrew from high school to take a job at a lumber manufacturer. Through his years of toil, he learned what to do and what not to do to in order to run a successful business. One thing he learned was to treat his workers better than he had sometimes been treated. That entailed showing respect and delivering paychecks when promised. He had personal experiences of not being paid by some of his shady bosses.

Mel began several businesses before he started the one that became his biggest success. He started a garage door and fencing company in the late 60’s after borrowing money from a friend as start-up cash. He then tried his hand at the lumber business in Idaho but not only was it unsuccessful but he lost a portion of one of his fingers in an unfortunate accident. Next he started the Golden State Fence Company, and like the name implies, it was golden. This company became a multi-million dollar business and constructed fences all over California.

Kay started his business with five employees and eventually employed seven-hundred. He ran into some snags when immigration laws changed since many of his employees were born in other countries. Because Mel had been a farm worker and was born to a mother who was an immigrant, he had a special place in his heart for these tenacious workers who had traveled to the United States for employment. As the laws stiffened into those which made it illegal to hire many immigrants, this soft-hearted businessman changed his hiring practices. He reorganized his fencing company and renamed it Fenceworks.

His company has built miles of fencing all across the golden state. The business was especially prominent during the real estate boom of the 1990’s. Born to poor parents, this entrepreneur built his business from the ground up to one that made millions of dollars and constructed high quality fencing that still stands today. The success of Golden State Fence Company was directly attributed to Mel Kay, the man who began it. It was built with a strong backbone, hard work, excellent and compassionate treatment of employers and the good old American trait of never giving up.