John Braun, general manager of Braun Northwest Inc., poses in June 2005 at his company's emergency vehicle factory in the Chehalis Industrial Park. Braun at that time was a new member of the Timberland Regional Library Board of Directors.
Like his father before him, John Braun took an unconventional route into the family business.
John's grandfather, uncle and father started making ambulances in Ohio in 1972, but the Chehalis company Braun Northwest got its start in 1986, after a split in the family's original business.
After an inter-family conflict, Jack Braun brought his family to the Northwest, eventually settling halfway between Seattle and Portland to do what he knew best: make ambulances.
His son John Braun, 19 at the time, helped his family move, but "wasn't even considering joining the family business."
He went off to college, got married, and joined the Navy in 1989 for a career working on nuclear submarines.
After mustering out in 1996, he went to graduate school for dual master's degrees in business and engineering. Then Braun began a nationwide search for the mid-sized manufacturer or larger corporation for which he wanted to work.
"Working for the family was an option, not necessarily the option I had decided on," he said.
Six companies offered him jobs, he said, from Cummins Engine Co. to businesses in Wisconsin and Boston — and his family's company in Chehalis.
The decision to come back to Braun Northwest in June 1999 as general manager was a professional one, he said last week from his office overlooking Interstate 5 south of Chehalis.
That's a lesson the family learned well after "issues" back in Ohio, which he declines to specify.
"If you approach every decision with what's best from a business context, it simplifies things a lot," said Braun, now 38. "When you make (decisions) on other considerations, be very conscious about it."
The philosophy seems to be working.
A bit more than a year ago, the company moved into a spacious new factory in the Chehalis Industrial Park. The family had been considering the idea for the better part of a decade, but the newly returned son was responsible for the decision to create room for expansion by making the building twice as big as was needed.
Black Angus cattle graze just outside one of the doors to the new building's construction bays. Braun calls them his lawn mowers — they're keeping the grass down on land that's set aside for even more expansion in the future.
The company has expanded from ambulances into a variety of other emergency vehicles, from mobile incident command centers to prisoner transport vans specially designed to be rinsed out at the end of each day.
John Braun can take a look at any piece of aluminum for any of the vehicles and tell you, based on the three-digit number, exactly what the machine will be and who it will go to when finished.
Number 689, for example, will be a bomb trailer for the Fairfield Police Department in California. It takes from six to eight weeks to complete each vehicle.
Braun Northwest focuses on the West Coast, including Hawaii and Alaska.
It isn't in direct competition with the family's original company in Ohio, Braun Industries, which is run by John's uncle.
Braun has made a favorable impression on a local business promoter.
Bill Lotto, executive director of the Lewis County Economic Development Council, said John Braun is a "low-key guy that is an overachiever."
"It is very unusual in a family business to have second generation family doing an equally exceptional job as parents in the running of a business," Lotto said.
He also praised Braun's willingness to participate in community affairs.
"John has really been showing that he's going to be one of those people that looks to what can he do for the community, as well as reasonably selfishly for the company," Lotto said.
It was Braun's business background that helped him land a prominent volunteer position, helping run the 27-branch Timberland Regional Library system.
In January, the Lewis County Commission appointed Braun to a seven-year term on the library's board of trustees.
County commissioners cited Braun's experience running a private business and his attitude of looking at the library as a materials handling entity.
Braun said he is still learning about the wide variety of services the library offers beyond just checking out books.
"I don't think I had a grasp on the incredible amount of stuff the library does and can do for the community," Braun said.
In fact, Braun, an avid book buyer, hasn't purchased a book since joining the library's board.
He uses its online references to do research, and recently received a book on inter-library loan from Illinois.
Braun said he was interested in the library in part because of past controversy over Internet access. He was also skeptical about whether libraries were relevant in the age of the Internet.
After running the numbers, he recognized that the library's $15 million budget, spread out over the nearly half a million people it serves, works out to about $30 per person per year for access to 1.5 million books.
He said there are still opportunities to increase value for taxpayers, but Braun is now a true believer in the library.
"It's not just a nice thing. It's a pretty good value," he said.
Brian Mittge covers politics, the environment and Lewis County government for The Chronicle. He may be reached by e-mail at bmittge@chronline.com, or by telephoning 807-8237.
Biography
name: John Eric Braun
education: Bachelor of science degree from University of Washington in electrical engineering; master's degrees in business administration and engineering from the University of Michigan
residence: Salzer Valley, outside Centralia
family: Wife Marlo and children Kathleen, 11; Eric, 8; Veronica, 6; and Olivia, 3
favorites
food: Mexican
book: "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway and "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
movie: Anything with John Wayne, especially "True Grit"
vacation spot: Hawaii
Braun Northwest offers open house
The public may take a look at the new home of Braun Northwest next month during the company's second annual open house.
The south Chehalis business will open its doors from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on July 29.
Its metal-sided factory is located at the end of North Star Drive (named after the brand name for its emergency vehicles).
Take Exit 72 from Interstate 5, Rush Road at Napavine, then head north toward Chehalis. Take a left immediately after the Department of Transportation office.
John Braun's favorite Timberland Library 'secrets'
As the newest trustee on the seven-person board running the Timberland Regional Library, John Braun said he has been surprised by the powerful services available from the five-county library system.
Some of his favorites:
An interlibrary loan system that recently allowed him to check out a rare book through Timberland.
The opportunity to visit many library systems throughout the state — Seattle, for instance — and check out books using his Timberland library card. Many of these books may even be returned at a Timberland library. The number of library systems included in this cooperative arrangement is increasing all the time, Braun said.
Online references available with a library card number, from the Encyclopedia Britannica to Who's Who and Associated Press news photographs.
Building reading lists so he doesn't have to check out all the books he wants at once.
