Facing the Brutal Realities: Ralph Jones’ Journey of Courage and Trust

Ralph Jones is a third-generation leader in the textile industry, heading a family business founded in 1936. With a deep-rooted passion for nonwoven textiles, Ralph has successfully navigated his company through significant industry shifts, expanding operations across the eastern United States. A devoted family man, Ralph has been married for 34 years and is a proud father of three and grandfather of three. His children and grandchildren live in Nashville and Dallas, with his son recently joining the family business. An avid hunter, Ralph enjoys bird hunting and spending time in nature, appreciating God’s creation. His journey of courage and trust, especially during challenging times for his company, exemplifies his faith and determination. Ralph believes in the power of facing life’s brutal realities head-on, a principle he attributes to his strong faith, and personal and professional resilience.

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Full Transcript

Intro:
Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out in courage and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson. 

Jeff Johnson:
Welcome back to another edition of the Courageous Crossroads. Glad to have you with us and really excited to introduce you to another good friend of mine, a real strong business leader and outdoorsman, somebody devoted to family and community, Ralph Jones. He has got a lot to say about courage in the face of adversity. And yeah, Ralph and I have been friends for a long time and he inspires me every time I have the opportunity to get together with him. And I know he’s going to inspire you as well. So here is Ralph Jones. Thanks for joining me today, Ralph. I’m super grateful that you’re coming on the podcast and telling me and the rest of the audience everything that you know about courage. And a caveat. 

Jeff Johnson:
I only invite super smart people on the podcast, so I give myself a license to ask all kinds of difficult questions. 

Ralph Jones:
So there’s one caveat here. You’re a lot smarter than I am, so I don’t accept that. 

Jeff Johnson:
I don’t know about that. Okay. Well, anyway, thanks for joining us and can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and whatever you want to share with them about family, business, personal, a little background? 

Ralph Jones:
I’ll be happy to. I’ve. I’ve got a wife of 34 years. I have three wonderful children, two of which are married and the oldest one has three children. I have three grandchildren. She and her husband live in Nashville. My middle daughter, she and her husband live in Dallas and my son lives in Nashville now after completing graduate school and just come to work for our family business. So excited about that. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wonderful. And the family business. 

Ralph Jones:
We’re in textiles, which a lot of people don’t realize that there still is a textile industry in this country, but we’re in predominantly in non woven textiles. We’re in our 88th year of business. I’m the third generation leader of this business and we started in 1936 spinning yarn for industrial applications and some products as innocuous as the wet mop, the yarn that went into a wet mops. Where we started, we over the years we grew that into a fairly sizable middle market business with multiple locations. And then the realities of the world and trade hit in the early 2000s and we moved more dramatically into Non woven textiles, which is a type of fabric made without weaving or knitting. And it’s where the fibers are held together either structurally through needle punch or. 

Ralph Jones:
Or through thermal bonding, which may be running it through an oven with plasticizing agents that hold the product together. So that’s where we’ve moved into. And we’ve got multiple locations across the eastern part of the United States, from across Tennessee to North Carolina, New Hampshire. And we’re looking at other opportunities in the Midwest right now. But that’s what we’re doing. Our yarn business is basically diminished to where we’re just a distributor today of yarns rather than being a manufacturer of yarns. That’s kind of what we do. 

Jeff Johnson:
You got an impressive business, Ralph. And I remember I had the luck of walking through your plant several years ago and it was just inspiring and it was impressive. You know, the idea of all of these spindles and everything spooling around and spinning and doing their thing and it was just impressive. I remember my jaw was kind of dropping a little bit. I’d never been in a place like that before. And you’ve got a bunch of those, you said around the country. 

Ralph Jones:
Well, that, yeah, what we do. We’ve got four plants right now and we’re looking at a fifth as we speak today. So we’re looking at opportunities there to continue to grow. We predominantly now in the non woven sector have three channels that we serve. One is the bedding sector, another one is cold chain packaging, which is where using textile products as insulators, basically replacing polystyrenes or better known as Styrofoam for insulation purposes and shipping, pharmaceuticals and food products. And then thirdly in the automotive space where we’re making products for General Motors and Ford’s use in some of their vehicles and other manufacturers as well. 

Jeff Johnson:
Is there, would you say there’s a robust textiles market in the United States or is the majority of it overseas? 

Ralph Jones:
The majority of the spinning, weaving, knitting that you think about for apparel is offshore. Now there are some sizable companies remaining in this country doing that, but not very many. Most of the knitting and has moved off to the Central America where that is moved in a large way to compete against the Asian companies. The spinning has, it’s around the world, it’s gotten more and more automated, so it doesn’t take as much labor in there, but it’s still moved to a great extent offshore. The non woven space that we happen to be in is a growing part of the textile industry. When you think of non Wovens. You can also think of scrubs that doctors and nurses wear. Those are made from non woven fabric. You think about ppe, personal protective equipment. Most of that is all non wovens. 

Ralph Jones:
You think about filters for filtration. If you see pleated filters or filters for your home, even that’s non woven production there. And the comfort in the bed that we do, that’s not foam is a textile product. And in automotive, you’re seeing that textile. Non woven high loft materials or thicker materials are replacing composites because they’re lighter weight and they provide more sound deadening and provide more noise control, which they’re looking for more and more of that particularly in electric vehicles because they’re quiet so they don’t want road noise coming through. And it also provides insulation against heat. So there are multiple applications that you’re seeing that are growing in this industry. 

Jeff Johnson:
It’s a fascinating industry, you know. Yeah, that’s impressive, Rob. Okay, how. Let me poke on you personally then. What are your enthusiasms? What do you like to. I know you to be a hunter. 

Ralph Jones:
I do enjoy hunting. I, I enjoy bird hunting, turkey hunting, deer hunting. I just enjoy being out in the woods seeing God’s creation and watching the sunrise or watching the sunset depending on what time of day I’m out there now. Really enjoy watching dogs work. I’ve got a bird dog, my son’s got a bird dog and we enjoy watching them get out and just run. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wow. I, I always associate. This is a stereotype, I know. I mean, I’m a Southern Iowa boy, so there’s a lot of hunting and fishing and all that kind of recreating that goes on, but I just never got that bug. I don’t know if it was because I wasn’t introduced to it or I didn’t like to take a fish off a hook or I don’t know what it was, but I always, I always associate hunting and fishing and those kind of outdoor pursuits as courageous kind of things. I imagine you’ve had some pretty courageous hunts before. What’s the most courageous hunt you’ve ever been on? 

Ralph Jones:
Well, I guess the most challenging hunt was going to hunt a doll sheep up in the McKenzie Mountains of Canada in the northwestern part of Canada. And it was. They dropped you off in the middle of nowhere with a guide, with a. And when I say that there were eight hunters hunting on 13, 000 square miles at the time I was up hunting. 

Jeff Johnson:
Oh my. 

Ralph Jones:
And the doll sheep is one that’s considered one of the more difficult hunts. And it was sort of a bucket list for me. And so I was very fortunate to get my sheep and then actually ended up with a caribou after that. So I, I, it was a successful hunt, but it was one that was more of a bucket list. How could I, challenging myself at 60 years old saying, what’s it going to be like being in the mountains where I’ve never hunted and never done big game hunt and taking that on. So that was, it was challenging and entertaining and I was thankful that it ended well. 

Jeff Johnson:
Now how long were you out on that hunt and didn’t you tell me there was a training regime you had to go through A little bit? 

Ralph Jones:
I did. To try to get physically fit for it. So I trained for it. Both, both get physically fit and also in my ability to use my firearm to make sure that I could have a clean kill and that I’m a big believer that if you hunt it, you shoot it, you eat it’s my family does that. And, and that’s part of, we think of being good stewards of God’s creation too. And so I prepared for a year physically to do that and then I actually went off and got training and use of my firearm just to make sure that I was good at long distance shots. 

Jeff Johnson:
So see, that’s courageous right there, training for that kind of thing and then having the integrity to hunt right. And do all that kind of stuff. I’m talking the right guy. Okay, so would you define for me, you know, this is the courageous crossroads. So I’m going to come down to the question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? But I’m curious about your definition of courage. What do you, how would you define it? What do you think of when you think of courage? 

Ralph Jones:
I thought about this a little bit, Jeff, prior to our conversation. To me, I think courage is facing the brutal realities of life and not turning your back. And that can be found in a lot of different ways. And you know, we’re all motivated to exhibit courage in different ways, I think, and at different times of our lives. And so, you know, you got some that can do it. When you think about soldiers, it’s duty and they show courage because of duty. And then you’ve got others that they want to help other people. So it’s servant leadership. They show courage to serve others. And then you think about, certainly it can be selfish in some sense that you won’t. As we’ve talked about earlier about Our health. 

Ralph Jones:
Sometimes we face health issues and we do it, or sometimes just for our own betterment and because that’s what we need to do to continue to survive. And then you got others that just want to desire to see a better world. I’ve had this conversation with a lot of folks about altruism. Does it really exist? Do people do things just because it’s the right thing? Just because they see a need and they won’t feel that need? I think it does exist. And I think courage comes from the ability to say it’s the right thing. And because of that I’m going to move forward and do it. And I remember as a young person in our church that comment said, well, what’s the definition of missions? Well, definition of missions is finding a need and fill in that need with God’s love. 

Ralph Jones:
And to me that’s altruism. That’s exactly what it’s speaking to. 

Jeff Johnson:
For sure. 

Ralph Jones:
Nothing exists. 

Jeff Johnson:
So altruism would be the beginning. Doing something just because it’s the right thing to do, because it’s the thing that God’s called you to do. And then courage would be the thing that pushes you through. Is that the way you describ of that? 

Ralph Jones:
Yeah, I think so. I think they’re all motivations. And how are you motivated? I mean, it could be selfish motivation, it could be altruism. It can be duty. You know, duty may not necessarily be that because it’s the right thing to do. It’s because you’re being told to charge of that hill. And that is your duty. And you’re required to do that as a servant or as a soldier in this, in that particular case. And I mean, I think about Desmond Dawson, Hacksaw Ridge man. He. He was a conscientious objector. Because of his fate, he couldn’t carry a gun and caught all sorts of grief. What. He saved 28 lives. Congressional Medal of Honor winner in that movie. And I don’t know that it was duty. He wasn’t doing it because it was just duty. He was doing it because he was compelled to. 

Ralph Jones:
He was, he was serving others. And I thought that’s motivation in action there. And so anyhow, that’s. I thought a little bit about that. And he’s one that I think showed exceptional courage that was exhibited in a movie and for probably all the right reasons. 

Jeff Johnson:
I totally agree. I totally agree. Do you, do you identify? Do you feel like you’re a courageous person? There’s a lot of people that I talk to, Ralph that say, well, I haven’t done anything courageous and I just. The reason, one of the reasons why I wanted to do this podcast is because I don’t think that’s true. I think everybody’s done something courageous, big or small, depending upon, you know, the world’s scale, but impactful for each and every person. But I’m curious, do you think of yourself as a courageous person? 

Ralph Jones:
No, not really. Not when I think about others that have done such, showed courage in such. This manifested in such great ways. But if I go back to the definition in my mind, the courage is facing the brutal realities of life and not turning your back. We all exhibit that at some point in time. Yes, life can be cotton picking tough sometimes. 

Jeff Johnson:
Absolutely. 

Ralph Jones:
And sometimes we can run from those issues or we can face those issues. And I think in most cases, or in a lot of cases, we turn and face them because we know we have to deal with them. And that takes courage. And it can be little things, just like you said, or it can be huge things, but we all exhibit courage in some form or fashion as long as we face those difficult times. I mean, it takes courage to do that. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. Well said, Ralph, who’s a person that personifies courage for you, that inspires you with courage. 

Ralph Jones:
I’ve got a couple near family members. I mean, one was my dad. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge. And I had the opportunity to go back and retrace his steps with him in 2000. Wow. Where he landed on Omaha Beach. It was four weeks after the D day, but landed and then went through, fought through France, through Belgium and crossed the Rhine into Germany. And his particular unit at the time of World War II had encountered the enemy on more continuous days than at any other time in the history of our country at that time. And so to me, that’s courage. Just getting up in the morning, you’re not even getting up half the time, you weren’t even sleeping. But. But anyhow, that exhibited courage to me. 

Ralph Jones:
And having the chance to kind of walk through that with him and then, yeah, I’ve got a daughter with a special needs child. She’s five years old. She has chromosome deletion syndrome. My daughter and son in law get up every day with an inaudible child that they take care of on a regular basis. And to me, it takes extreme courage to deal with that each and every day. And it’s not something that’s going to go away. It’s something that they love. It’s a child they love child. We Love and dealing with that is extreme courage. In my mind. 

Jeff Johnson:
Those are two fantastic examples. Wow. Well, I want to, I don’t want to beat around the bush anymore, Ralph. I want to come right down to it. I’m sure I’ll have another question or two on the other side of this, but Ralph Jones, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? 

Ralph Jones:
I think you’ve touched on a lot of points. Some of them are very small, some of them are large. And they, and I think some of your previous interviewees have commented about. There’s different times in different parts of your life that were courageous as you look back on them. But the one most central I guess right now, in the last two years, beginning in 2022 and 2023, our company went through a very dark period which there was some extreme struggles. I had intentionally tried to look at ways that I could step away to allow for the company to have a future with professional leadership, professional governance. And it stayed engaged from a board seat standpoint, but not inactive day to day. 

Ralph Jones:
And went through some very dark times and, which forced me to step in back in the spring of 22 after our company had lost 50% of its equity in the business that had been built up over 80 years, that had taken on more debt than it ever had in its history. And our operations were out of control and our accounting functions were out of control and really stepped in that dark time. And it’s interesting you’d say, well that’s, that could be ego. In this case it was. We were within days of the bank saying we’re going to call you and even to the point that it took my wife and I talking that we put our, all of our personal wealth virtually on the line to guarantee all the debt. And were minority shareholders. And to me, God showed up in so many ways. 

Ralph Jones:
I, I, I think but we had, I have a dear friend named Jeff Johnson shared with me great wisdom one day from a gentleman named John Lennox, great apologist from Oxford, that shared with me that you trust reason and use God for your purposes, or you can trust God and use reason. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Ralph Jones:
And all of a sudden it taught me a lesson as we fell on our face and we said, Lord, this company ain’t going to exist unless you make things happen and we trust you totally. And if it chooses not to exist, then we won’t deal with that. If it chooses to exist, we’re going to give you all the praise and the Glory. And I can start. I’ve got a list here about 15 items where God showed up unexpected. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wow. 

Ralph Jones:
And I think the courage was that trust factor. You know, faith to me is more of a. A. I won’t say a value system or my worldview, my Christian worldview. But trust is putting feet on that faith and it’s putting in action and falling on our face without expectation of success or loss. We had. We’re in a small community. Our headquarters are a small community in Tennessee. And we had a California investor show up in our community that bought two of our old warehouses. We weren’t using that. We use those funds to pay down debt. They came out of nowhere. We had a gentleman that had left our firm under the previous leadership. He was third generation with our company. Came back in and loves the Lord, loves our company and came in and straightened out our operations. 

Ralph Jones:
Now serves as our president of our company. He showed up out of the blue. We had a bank when nobody else wanted to bank us. Happened. It started in our small community here. Went to their bigger, bigger urban areas talking with the bankers. And it. He was a gentleman that showed up that set up leaving y’all. And if he hadn’t that would have closed the doors. And he took us under his wing. We had a CFO that was. Came to us after we had multiple issues with. In our finance areas. Showed up that came out of the blue who’s from another small community near here. But it had umpteen amount of. Of experience with private equity and cost accounting that fit every Bill Young, fit every need that we had. 

Ralph Jones:
On June 30th of 2023, we had two accounts show up and start buying from us that today will represent 25% of our business going forward. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wow. 

Ralph Jones:
That came out of nowhere. We had a facility on the west coast that we needed to close. We closed that facility and ended up one of our biggest competitors. Bought one of our lines out of there and once again able. Enabled us to pay down debt. We were able to get out of our leases out there with minimal, relatively minimal pain whatsoever. We were able to end up buying a company last fall that was related to our current president. That. That put us in a whole new area of industrial maintenance and supply for our industry, not just for our local communities that we serve around here. It’s been. The attorneys that came in to help us to. To keep us out of going upside down were phenomenal. And they came in and served. 

Ralph Jones:
Served so well for us that we didn’t even know who they were. Before we. They were brought to us by old friends. And then finally were able to go to our family and do a confidential stock offering to. To raise funds to pay down more debt. And the family came through with that and put more money into the business. And today we’re looking at expansions. And so, yeah, when I look at. May be more of a trust walk than courage, but in the same sense, I think it’s it. For me, the courage was. Was really the trust, and it was saying, okay, God, I don’t believe in prosperity gospel. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not into that. But I do know that God does bless. 

Ralph Jones:
And I also know that in the hard times, and I’ve been there too, when it didn’t turn out the way you wanted. Wasn’t God’s fault either. God’s just there to listen and walk beside me, and I’m going to trust him wherever that takes me. And so I don’t know if that answers your question. 

Jeff Johnson:
Jeff answers it. There’s a line in the. There’s a line in Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem, if that says, if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they’re gone, and so hold on when there’s nothing in you except the will, which says hold on. And now that’s not written. That’s probably written from a secular perspective, but I hear you say the courage that you exhibited in this turnaround is to trust God and just hold on to him when. When everything else was kind of falling apart. And that absolutely is a picture of courage, Ralph. Wow. 

Ralph Jones:
I appreciate that poem, by the way. I learned in the sixth grade and stuck with me ever since. And I think it speaks great wisdom, let me put it that way, that entire point. 

Jeff Johnson:
Oh, for sure. Everybody in the world should be memorizing that in grade school. Yeah, without a doubt. So that’s a wonderful story, Ralph. And I love hearing you give all the credit to God for seeing you guys through that. But it started with that courage to trust in him for sure. When you do that, how does that inform you now? I would imagine that it gives you some kind of resolve to. For the next day and the next day. Is that right? Is it compounding your confidence in your faith and that sort of thing? 

Ralph Jones:
It does. And let me say this. I need to go back and say this too, because walking right beside me and leaning in with me as we fought through this battle was my bride, My wife was a rock. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Ralph Jones:
And we prayed together and we cried together, and we. We spent time together walking through this. This process as well. 

Jeff Johnson:
Amen. 

Ralph Jones:
You know what the hardest thing is, Jeff, on this is what? When you’re so bare and you. You lay it all out there and you feel so close and you feel in such a. A communion with. With God. One of my fears is I don’t want to lose that. And so when things start going good, it’s easy to say, oh, okay, well, now it’s going good. 

Jeff Johnson:
Right. 

Ralph Jones:
But I don’t want to lose that. That. That relationship that is built and has grown so deep with my Lord. And so I see this is all part of that growth process, too. And I’ve got somebody, another wise gentleman that has given me some good counsel with some great books. And, and so one is the book Humility. I’m reaching around to get Ralph and. 

Jeff Johnson:
I like to do some reading. That’s what he’s talking about. We like to. We’re both like to stick our nose in a book and learn from people a lot smarter than ourselves. Yeah, yeah. 

Ralph Jones:
Andrew Murray’s Humility and then Tozer’s Pursuit of God. Great, great books, wonderful books. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. That’ll call up some courage in you. And it’s a big deal, though, Ralph, that you pick those up and that you read them, because there’s a lot of people that don’t. They don’t pursue that kind of character development. And so I applaud you for doing that. Somebody else is going through what you’ve gone through. I love hearing your story about the most courageous thing, because I just think there’s a lot of people are going to be listening to this podcast and they’re going to be thinking, I’m in the midst of it right now, and I can’t see how this is going to work out. And maybe I got a little bit of stuff in me just to hold on. But what would you say to them? 

Jeff Johnson:
How would you encourage people to build up the courage in themselves to just withstand and just to walk through? What would you say to them? 

Ralph Jones:
Acknowledge that you’re not in control. When you’re not in control, then there means that there’s got to be, in my judgment, a higher being that sees all and that will get you through this. And it may not be in form or format that you would like or that you expected, but it may better, and it may just be different than what you expect it to be. But that trust factor of accepting that, I think this gives the freedom to live more fully engaged in the issue, whatever it may be. And then I think then constantly just reevaluating, taking time to reevaluate your circumstance and situation of that you’re going through and saying, okay, how am I addressing it? And really, as much as anything, too, it’s finding other folks to share it with. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Ralph Jones:
That you can let them know I’m going through this and listen for wise counsel. And, and that wise counsel can come through lots of things that it can. It might be in a sunset or a sunrise. It might be in a dear friend that cares about you. 

Jeff Johnson:
Right. 

Ralph Jones:
It might be in a pastor, it might be in a counselor. But I think you’re always better served to share those struggles with someone that’s wiser or has seen more than you have. And I think that’s a good way to approach it. 

Jeff Johnson:
Well said. Well said. If you are listening to this and you’re interested in turning a business around, or if you’re interested in being at the end of yourself and trusting completely and totally in God and finding the freedom and the relief in that, or if you’re interested in learning a lot about courage, you need to talk to Ralph Jones. That’s just it right there. So, Ralph, my friend, thank you so much for joining us today. You’ve blessed me and you’re blessing so many people with your story. Thank you. 

Ralph Jones:
I appreciate it. Jeff, wish you the best. 

Outro:
Thank you for joining us today on Courageous. If you’d like to hear more about the work and ministry being done at Crossroads Apologetics, please visit our home on the web at crossroadsapologetics.org Would you or someone you know like to be featured on Courageous? Send us an email at info@crossroadsapologetics.com or info@crossroadsapologetics.org telling us about the most courageous thing you’ve ever done.