Interview with Jim Nooney
A Christian CEO
Nicholas Chuan
Jim Nooney is the CEO of Nooney Controls, a provider
of custom valve system solutions. Jim is a Christian who
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Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to sit down with
him for an interview.
Q: Where did you grow up and what is your faith
background?
I grew up mostly in Southern Rhode Island. My
father worked for a business here in Providence,
building a career and working a lot. My mother was
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but she knew that there was a hole in her soul and
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churches and then ultimately found a Presbyterian
church, started to read the Bible and made that
decision to follow Christ when I was about eight or
nine years old. So I started going to church as a little
kid, but it didn’t mean much to me. In high school,
I started to realize that she had a strong faith and it
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us to church, can guide us, can give us information,
but you have to make your own decision. So I made
a decision to follow Christ in early high school and
I began to be transformed by the Holy Spirit. Very
simply put, I understood that I had a purpose. FolTW_QVO+PZQ[\_I[V¼\R][\NWZUM#Q\_I[V¼\R][\\PI\
I was good and was going to heaven. It changes us
and how we look at the world and how we look at
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perfect one.
Q: How did your education shape how you view
your faith and your career?
16 Fall 2016
I went to Moses Brown High School and most of
my teachers were communists and non-religious.
I remember being there and realizing that I was
alone. I then decided to go to a Christian college,
and I went to Gordon College up in the North
Shore of Boston. It was a great place that strengthened my faith. I think that one of the great things
about Gordon is that its goal there is to teach you to
integrate your faith with your learning and your career. It’s not that you’re this person on Sunday and
then you’re something else for the rest of that week.
I think that the goal for every Christian is to be the
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am, a follower of Christ. Going to Gordon helped
me to begin that.
Q: Tell me about the early years of your
career.
I graduated from Gordon with a business degree
right when my father left his big company and started a small company, basically because he accepted
Christ. He felt like he had to compromise in the big
company and that the best way for him to get away
from that company was to start his own company.
It was only two years old when I graduated and he
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other employees, and me. I worked out in our shop,
doing hands-on manual labor and estimating sales,
before I became an outside sales engineer where
I dealt directly with customers, bringing in new
business. That was the career I began and I’ve been
doing that for 31 years.
The goal for every Christian is to be the
same person, everywhere, all the time;
this is who I am, a follower of Christ.
Q: When did you take over the company as CEO
and how was that transition?
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and I’ve been the CEO of the company since. We
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