How I Survived an Employee Mutiny

In 1980, I was working for Williams Gold (now Ivoclar Vivadent) in Buffalo, NY. My father Raymond Gold owned Oral Arts Dental Laboratory, a 13-person operation in Atlanta, GA. He had to have cardiac bypass surgery and couldn’t manage the lab; since there was no chain of command or management team, he really needed help.

My boss Vic Williams, a good friend of my father’s, insisted I go home to help out temporarily. I didn’t want to; I was happy in my job. But Vic persisted and soon I found myself in Atlanta, watching over the business—with no management and limited technical experience, mind you—while my dad recovered.

Two weeks in, I had a disagreement with the head of the ceramic department. He announced in a fury that he was leaving to start his own lab and walked out the door…with the three other ceramists in tow.

I...