Reading struggle turns into passion of a lifetime

In 1973, Jay Thiessens launched B & J Machine & Tool Inc., working singlehandedly out of a former employer's machine shop.

Thirty years later, he's handing over the $4 million-plus Sparks-based business to his daughter and son-in-law.

"It's not easy," said Thiessens.

"It's very, very difficult, but we've been planning this for the last four years."

The transition isn't Thiessens' first challenge or his toughest.

There were two floods, the last of which, in 1997 filled the shop with three and half feet of water.

There was the year-long search for enough land to relocate the growing business, preferably outside a flood plain.

Then, once the 11 acres was purchased, there was the construction of the 54,000-square-foot building the company currently occupies.

But all that was nothing compared to what Thiessens says was his biggest struggle - and for a long time his biggest secret: learning to read.

"It was the hardest thing I've done in my life," Thiessens said recently while sitting in a company conference room.

"Building this building was easier than learning how to read."

It all started, Thiessens says, when he was a young child.

"It was a mental block with me because I had a second grade teacher telling me I was stupid."

In high school, Thiessens started taking machine shop courses, says his daughter, Cherie Fisher, now president of B & J.

"He became a machinist and decided he could open up his own shop," said Fisher.

"He didn't learn to read in school but he had rudimentary reading skills."

But Thiessens soon found out his skills weren't enough to perform basic business duties, such as reading contracts, which his wife Bonnie - the B in B & J - did for many years.

"Me and my wife set out to hide it," said Thiessens.

"The children knew, but they also knew it was very necessary to hide it. We couldn't let any competitors know because they would use it against me somehow."

That all changed five years ago, when Thiessens was called to be bishop of the Church of Latter Day Saints in Sparks.

He had to admit to members of the church he couldn't read.

That led to the beginning of his journey to learn how to read when a church member, Ella Moss, began tutoring Thiessens five nights a week.

Then B & J was nominated for the National Blue Chip Enterprise Initiative Award, awards given annually by Mass Mutual and the United States States Chamber of Commerce to businesses that overcome obstacles.

B & J was nominated because the company had managed to resume shipping its products three days after the 1997 flood, while they were still bailing out.

But when officials of the award came to talk to Thiessens something unexpected happened.

"My daughter piped up and said the flood isn't the biggest thing Dad has had to overcome," said Thiessens.

"My heart just sank, but the Mass Mutual guy said, wow, now that would win an award."

And it did.

In 1998, B & J and Thiessens won both the local award and one of six national awards for his struggle and triumph in running a successful business as he learned how to read.

Since then he and his wife founded the Jay and Bonnie Thiessens Literacy Foundation, which is testing and working with school children to improve their reading skills.

Thiessens now plans to spend about half his time working with the foundation, and the other half working on product development for B & J, which counts International Game Technology and ATEC Inc.

among its customers.

He continues to receive tutoring, now one night a week, and to speak to Rotary clubs, businesses and other groups about literacy.

That's because what was once Thiessens biggest secret has led to when he calls his lifelong passion - helping others learn to read.