The Army didn’t know what to do with a cancer patient.

There were warrior transition units for combat wounded, but as Matt Meyers learned, “there’s no Purple Hearts for cancer, even though you got it when you’re deployed.” His boss called after two weeks on the job with a simple message: “They don’t really know what to do with you. Why don’t you stay home and when you’re better, come back.”

Matt took that advice. After years of deployment, months of devastating chemotherapy, and barely living with his wife Nicole over three years of marriage, he cashed in saved leave time—months of accumulated days from deployments and treatment. He and Nicole, both avid travelers, took one-year-old Jack on an ambitious journey: visiting her sister, then Egypt, Jordan, and Israel (the last one spontaneous, “not part of the plan”). Then in 2010, Matt returned to the family business his parents started in 1974.

The transformation was shocking. The 20-30 person company he’d left in the late ’90s had ballooned to 180 employees. His parents had built corporate management systems. Everything looked different. But timing couldn’t have been worse—the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were winding down, and defense spending “every faucet pretty much turned off overnight.”

B.E. Myers and Company had never done a layoff in 40 years. In Matt’s first year back, they did four. From 180 people to 55 in twelve months. “It was devastating for the company,” Matt recalls. The most critical loss? The documentation specialists. Defense contracting requires mountains of paperwork—those infamous 700-page quality control manuals. Everyone complains about expensive nails, but “once you require 700 pages of paperwork and eight attorneys to put it together, the price of the nail does get a little bit more expensive.”

With the documentation experts gone, Matt and the remaining team made a radical decision: focus resources only where absolutely necessary. Apply common sense. It sounds simple, but it was revolutionary for a defense contractor.

This became Matt’s philosophy: pull the red string. “A lot of times people don’t question it. Why is that red string there? I don’t know. But it’s not my red string, so I’m not going to mess with it.” Matt wanted people who would pull it, see what happens, ask questions. Often the answer was: “It’s been there as long as I’ve worked here.” Six years. A seven-year-old solution to a problem that no longer existed, costing thousands of dollars in metaphorical rent.

The company also had a branding problem. Matt would walk into rooms of 100 people: 98 had never heard of Be Myers. Then he’d mention their signature product—the MIPIM (infrared zoom laser illuminator)—and suddenly 98 people would light up: “Oh yeah, I love that thing!” Exceptional product recognition, invisible brand recognition.

The solution came from understanding the company’s remarkable origin story. Matt’s father never read fiction, only technical manuals and history books. A college dropout who sold orange juice and encyclopedias door-to-door, dug graves, drove trucks, played in a Milwaukee garage band, and pursued dangerous hobbies: scuba diving and self-taught explosives work.

His father combined these obsessions into a business. He started with underwater salvage diving using explosives, accidentally discovering how to clean barnacles off ship hulls with explosive netting. After lifting a 300-foot ship several inches and shattering $90,000 worth of toilets and piping (insurance promptly dropped him), he pivoted to home astronomy—hosting “star parties” for Boeing engineers where you’d get dinner, drinks, stargazing, a telescope sale, and permission to sleep on the lawn before your 5 AM shift.

Then someone traded him a Vietnam-era night vision tube as collateral. Matt’s dad started tinkering, became one of the first to sell night vision to law enforcement, then decided to manufacture his own on the kitchen table when larger distributors took his territories. “I just got to sell one,” was his mantra.

The current B.E. Myers model? “A hodgepodge of dad’s odd hobbies: astronomy, machine guns, and tinkering with electronics and optics.”

After 9/11, they pivoted entirely to weapons-based systems. When Matt returned, he brought a soldier’s understanding of what worked in the field and a son’s appreciation for his father’s unlikely genius.

About Matt Meyers

Matthew Meyers is the Chief Executive Officer of B.E. Meyers & Co., Inc. headquartered Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1974, B.E. Meyers & Co., Inc. remains a leader in the field of visible and infrared laser technology (photonics), optics, and systems integration for the Aerospace and Defense industries. As a shareholder in this family-held firm, Mr. Meyers acts as the Family Representative to the Board of Advisors, and facilitates the corporate strategic planning process.

Previously, Mr. Meyers served as the Director of Marketing and Business Development for B.E. Meyers & Co. Inc., revitalizing the family brand by implementing a campaign of aggressive new product development efforts, re-focused customer engagement, as well as new marketing methods and media styles to address an ever-evolving landscape of military and law enforcement end-users, program offices, and government entities.

As a Product Manager, prior to his term as Director of Marketing and Business Development, Mr. Meyers was involved in the company’s DoD Programs of Record and development efforts with the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC-Crane), PEO Soldier, PEO Sensors and Lasers, PEO Crew Served Weapons, and the USN Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) along with a variety of Original Equipment Manufacturers. The scope of these development efforts ranged from Crew-Served Weapon lasers, to integrated photonics packages for rotary wing aircraft and UAVs, and into leading technologies such as Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR), Mid Wave Infrared (MWIR) and Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) lasers and sensors for battlefield observation, targeting, and communication.

Prior to working at B.E. Meyers & Co., Inc., Mr. Meyers was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Infantry after graduating from the Virginia Military Institute in 2001. His first assignment was with the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division located in Baumholder, Germany. In 2003 he was deployed to Baghdad and Iskandariyah, Iraq for 15 months in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His second deployment was to Camp Buehring, Kuwait for six months between 2005 and 2006, which was also in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Now a Captain, Mr. Meyers served in positions as a Mechanized Infantry Rifle Platoon Leader, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps Battalion US Officer-in-Charge, Mechanized Infantry Company Executive Officer, Support Platoon Leader, and Chief of Logistics (S4).

Following these duties Captain Meyers was assigned to an Embedded Training Team for 12 months between 2007 and 2008 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Herat, Afghanistan. There he was tasked to operate alongside Afghan Police and Army units as part of the Afghanistan Regional Security Integration Command (ARSIC-West). Captain Meyers later served as the Operations Officer of the Border Police Mentor Team, as the Executive Officer of the Delaram Afghan Police Mentor Team, as the Future Plans Officer for ARSIC West, and finally, as the ARSIC-West Chief of Intelligence (S2) conducting operations throughout western Afghanistan.

Mr. Meyers holds a Bachelors of Arts Degree in International Studies from the Virginia Military Institute. Originally from Issaquah, WA, he is married to the former Nicolle Burke of Bellevue, WA, and has two children, Jack and Lillian. When not running B.E. Meyers & Co., Inc. Mr. Meyers enjoys shooting, hiking, and foreign travel.

Links:

• Website – www.bemeyers.com
• Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/matt.meyers.bemeyers/

About Tracy Crowley
Tracy Crowley has always been an entrepreneur. Whether it was making gowns for fellow Army wives, taking portraits in black and white, or working on her other businesses, she is always learning something new.

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