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March 1, 2009
John Johnson had led an adventurous life when, in 1991, doctors treating his kidney cancer gave him a year to live.
Employees and staff work together at Just Johnson's Millworks, a family-owned company that hires mentally and physically disabled people to make furniture and arts and crafts pieces.
He’d been a commercial diver, a commercial fisherman and, until the Exxon Valdez oil spill, a drilling foreman in Alaska. He’d also served in Vietnam as a U.S. Army paratrooper.
John waited around to die, but when it didn’t happen he got bored and founded a millwork company that has expanded and thrived with a remarkable staff.
More than three-quarters of the 72 employees at Just Johnson’s Inc. are disabled, and at any given time he employs 18 or so veterans, some of them recruited from the California Veterans Assistance Foundation’s homeless services program.
The north Bakersfield company manufactures just about anything you can buy made of wood. Arts and crafts, stakes, furniture, crown molding, cabinets. It even has a laser cutter that can make coasters and signs bearing seals or logos.
One of the company’s “challenged” employees — as John refers to them — is Kyle Johnson, 25, who shares John’s last name but isn’t related.
Kyle sands and paints from a wheelchair he’s used since he was hit by a car.
“I like it here,” Kyle said. “It’s a cool place to work.”
John, 61, didn’t set out to build a company that would double as a social service agency.
Initially the company had just one disabled employee, John’s daughter, Cassy Kullijian, who has cerebral palsy.
“She was answering phones for us. Then she had a friend who needed a job so I hired her to sweep up, and it just snowballed from there,” he said.
The company declined to reveal annual revenue, saying only that Just Johnson’s is a for-profit company, but there isn’t much profit in it.
“That’s not the point,” said John’s wife, vice president of human resources Deborah Johnson. “Almost everybody here either is disabled or has a family member who is disabled.”
The company’s goal is to create skilled employees who can work in the mainstream and, to the extent possible, live independently.
There are 46 disabled apprentices on the payroll.
Workers paid at least minimum wage get on-the-job training. They are sprinkled among woodworkers, clerks, computer programmers, administrators and maintenance staff, among others.
Some use adaptive equipment Just Johnson’s purchased to accommodate their needs, including oversized computer screens for the visually impaired, and desks tall enough for a wheelchair to clear.
Much of the wood cutting is automated to prevent injuries. For every two apprentices, there is a job coach who trains employees and monitors their work. Some of the coaches are disabled themselves, or have disabled relatives.
Jolene Tripp, 47, is the company’s client manager and safety officer. She has a mentally disabled daughter.
“The coaches stay on top of them because this isn’t charity. It’s a real job,” Tripp said. “Some of them have to learn things we take for granted, that they have to show up on time or call in sick if they aren’t feeling well.”
That’s a big hurdle for employees with developmental delays, or who are struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, but the company will work with just about anyone who makes a good faith effort.
Just Johnson’s is the city’s No. 1 employer of veterans served by the California Veterans Assistance Foundation, said foundation president Robert Piaro.
John has “a heart of gold to give these people a chance when there are so many out there who won’t,” Piaro said. John said he is patient with the long-term effects of combat, such as post traumatic stress disorder.
“I had a healthy dose of that, myself,” he said.
The company leases stables for horses used in therapy and to reward good behavior and jobs well done. John can relate to the disabled, too. A decorated veteran, he said he was shot and exposed to the chemical herbicide Agent Orange. John has heart disease, diabetes and just one kidney, the other removed because it was cancerous.
He also lives with his wife’s two adult cousins. One is developmentally disabled and epileptic. One is autistic.
There are lots of nonprofit organizations that hire large numbers of disabled workers, said Kern Regional Center executive director Michal Clark, but to his knowledge no other for profit companies have hired the disabled on such a scale.
“It truly is amazing,” Clark said. “And I’ve seen some of the stuff they make. It’s pretty good.”
Before joining Just Johnson’s a year ago, Juan Espinoza, 32, hadn’t worked since he was paralyzed by a stray bullet as a teen. He’d gone to school to learn auto painting, but employers wouldn’t hire him.
“It feels good to work,” Espinoza said. “I always knew I could, but nobody would hire me so I was just, I guess a homemaker, you’d say.
“Now, I get out of the house every day, and I’m earning a paycheck. It’s nice.”
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