Success Profile

His mother Clara named him Joe Louis Dudley. Like his namesake, he would become great. Along with thirteen other family members, Dudley was raised in a three room farmhouse in Aurora, North Carolina (see photo). He was left back in the first grade, labeled mentally retarded and hampered by a speech impediment. But he grew up to become the President and CEO of Dudley Products.

A graduate of North Carolina A & T State University, he wanted to be a farmer like his father and grandfather. But a summer job at Fuller Products changed his life. The company was run by millionaire S. B. Fuller. who was the richest Black man of his time. "I started working for them in 1957. They talked about being self-reliant and that meant a great deal to me," recalls Dudley who readily switched his college major to business administration.

After graduation, he worked for Fuller Products on a full-time basis. In time, he would become team leader and gain the respect of Fuller who became his mentor. At the company, Dudley would also find another blessing. He met Eunice Mosley, who became his wife and is now Dudley's Chief Financial Officer. This partnership would prove beneficial for the couple's future business success.

Five years after beginning with Fuller, Dudley began a distributorship in North Carolina. Later with Mr. Fuller's blessings, Joe Dudley would venture out on his own, and start Dudley Products. But first, he had to learn manufacturing and product formulation. With S.B. Fuller's sharing of some of the technology, the enterprising entrepreneur began going to the library to research and shore up needed information for the business launch. "I started making the products on my kitchen stove. I didn't have the money so I went out to beauty salons and they gave me their old containers. Then I would take old milk jugs and make shampoo. We just took what we had. My wife would type the labels. My kids would put the tops on the containers. I would make the products by night and sell them during the day."

His hard work paid off. Today, Dudley employs more than 500 employees; his company has a line of more than 120 products that are sold in the United States, Europe and Africa. On the company's forty-five acres in Kernersville, North Carolina, there are a manufacturing/office plant, $3 million hotel, cafeteria, travel agency and the fully-accredited Dudley Cosmetology University. Dudley Products is truly a family affair with wife Eunice and children Joe Jr., Ursula and Genea working for the company.

"I took a little bag of ten dollars," Dudley says of his initial investment in Fuller Products. "I didn't have to borrow money and it kept on growing."

Joe Dudley childhood home

Joe Dudley's boyhood home.

Read more about Joe Dudley in Success Strategies for African Americans by Beatryce Nivens. Visit Dudley Products' web site at www.dudleyq.com

Photos source: Joe Dudley's and boyhood home pictures from Dudley Products' web site.