Easy Going

A low-key approach works for Gladieux and Pressure Positive.

By John Crawford

Bernard "Bun" Gladieux Jr. was caught in the rat race. As a lobbyist for the food industry, he worked in the pressure cooker of Washington, D.C. His days were long, and vacations were rare.

"I was a real suit," Gladieux recalls. Once, during a hike in the park, far removed from the strain of work, he thought about how life could be different. "I thought about what it would be like to be free, to experience a different lifestyle."

Gladieux needed a change, and made it happen. Today, as president and owner of the Pressure Positive Company, his old stressful life is far away. His company's office is a renovated 19th century barn in the rural Pennsylvania town of Gilbertsville. The company has just six employees, plus a dog. His son, daughter and wife all work beside him.

"We're all so close," says Gladieux's son, Bernard "Bunky" Gladieux III, the company's CEO. "I can consider my dad my best friend."

Pressure Positive is not only a stress-free place, it's also a successful company. Driven by the idea that patients can take control of their own treatment, the company designs and manufactures massage tools for muscle pain and dysfunction. Clinicians encourage patients to take a proactive approach to their care, and tools from Pressure Positive allow them to become active participants in maintaining their own health.

"Health care has become patient driven, and that's good news for us," says Gladieux's daughter, Renee, the senior vice president of sales and marketing. "[People] have garden-variety muscle pain, and these tools allow them to deal with it."

The company's massage tools grew out of Gladieux's desire to relieve his own aches and pains from a lifetime of sports activities. He soaked up information on the topic and met with Dr. Hans Kraus, a pioneer in treating muscle pain. The elder Gladieux "has an inquisitive mind," Renee says. "He's a problem solver."

Back in 1980, Gladieux teamed with a local blacksmith—probably the last person plying that trade in the area—to develop the prototype of the Backnobber.® Shaped like a letter "s," the Backnobber hooks over a shoulder or under an arm, and a person uses leverage to apply direct pressure.

The design for the smaller Jacknobber® soon followed. A hand-held massage device, the Jacknobber has four knobs that are used to apply different types of pressure.

In the early years of his business, Gladieux built and sold the tools himself. "It was definitely a bootstrap operation," he says. "I was a one-man show for a while."

He attended local races and set up a table displaying his products to runners. Word-of-mouth spread, despite the fact he didn't do any advertising. In fact, Pressure Positive didn't have a marketing person until 2003, when Renee joined the company.

Health care professionals had never seen anything like the massage tools, which represented a novel approach to care. "These were the first massage tools to hit the market in a big way," Renee says. "Back then, physicians weren't talking to patients about self-care."

With the grind of Washington behind him, Gladieux peddled his products throughout the 1980s. Business grew each year. Knockoff versions of the Jacknobber, made in China, even started appearing, which taught the young company a valuable lesson about the importance of safeguarding intellectual property.

Despite such setbacks, the fledging company eventually incorporated in 1992, and continued its steady growth. Today, practitioners ranging from physical therapists, massage therapists and occupational therapists to physicians and chiropractors use the products and recommend them to patients to use at home.

But while Pressure Positive continues to introduce new massage products and expand its reach, don't expect the staff to work to the bone growing the company. Gladieux left Washington to bring balance to his life–a balance between work and play, office and family.

That ideal is still a key part of his business philosophy. Gladieux takes an easy-going approach to running his business. He's open to suggestions, rarely puts in more than 40 hours a week, and doesn't micromanage. In fact, in 10 years working with his father, Bunky Gladieux doesn't think they've had a major argument.

"I couldn't ask for a better working environment," says Bun Gladieux.