On Mr Randell's first visit to the factory, he stopped to read a notice board filled with thank you letters from local school children who had done work experience in the factory.

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The experience inspired him to experiment with giving his factory workers more autonomy, allowing them to set their own schedules, and to solicit their ideas for new products and how to better run the business.

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There are many Americans whose only experience with trade and globalization has been a shuttered factory or a job that was shipped overseas.

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He left the factory world at 22, changed by the experience of grassroots peasantry and poverty.

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