By Emily Matejcek and Lisa Kopecky
Randy Bedford graduated in 1971, the very first year of Mini-School. Twenty six years ago. Chris Bagdons who was not even born in 1971 graduated from Mini in 1993. These two characters, believe it or not, are now working together and have a great relationship with one another.
So we had this interview to do. We hopped in the car and went to Prototype Products. The point of us going there was to talk to Randy Bedford and Chris Bagdons and hear their story. We got there and ended up waiting around, but we were early, so it wasn’t Randy’s fault. He gave us a tour of his work place, where we found out how to make plastic parts. First, he told us about how people use aluminum molds instead of steel molds when they want to make thousands of molds real fast. Steel molds are better quality. To make a mold they make a design on a computer which goes on a floppy disk. When you put the disk in a molding making machine it automatically makes a mold.
Some molds are used 10 thousand times a year, others like molds used for measuring rivers by the natural resources are only used 50 times. Then there’s the Dirt Devil company who spent $80,000 just to make a few parts which were only used once. Some of the plastic products they made were things to help mute people talk, and special little police talkie things that made Randy confess that he doesn’t like authority figures.
Randy got to his job as a purchasing, ordering, finding best supplier, making sure things come on time project manager, by doing just about everything. Chris got to his job as a shipping, taking care of hazardous waste and recycling, driving and quality control, by doing everything under that first category also. As you can tell they are both definitely not slackers.
Chris started working for Randy after they had an interview in the Mini-School office. Randy hired someone else for the job that he had originally wanted someone for, a press operator, but hired Chris anyway, because of his positive attitude. The press operator ended up to not be such a good choice, so Chris was moved up. The first press operator got a Christmas bonus and only worked there a week and Chris didn’t happen to get one. We sensed some unhappiness about this situation.
Both Randy and Chris got a lot out of Mini-School. It prepared Chris for the service and it helped Randy to appreciate the environment, have a better outlook on life and develop values. They both thought of Doug and Randy as more than role models, but friends. As Randy quoted, “Mini-School is an environment to develop human potential”. Chris’s comment was, “Randy Nelson’s radio voice”. They seemed to have the same views about the administration in that they think that as Randy put it, “they should appreciate what they have”. All in all, the interview was very successful. Thank you Randy and Chris for your input and tour.