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November 15, 2024

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Anderson is a serial entrepreneur

By M.V. Greene

It would be easy for Joseph B. Anderson Jr. to fall into showy flamboyance considering all his accomplishments. But that’s not him. He embodies the words full-service business owner, savvy leader and helpful mentor as majority owner, chairman and CEO of TAG Holdings LLC. 

His achievements highlight an illustrious, determined and high-profile lifetime and career. Some notable examples include:  

• The U.S. Military Academy at West Point graduate: studied mathematics and engineering.

• University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) graduate: two master’s degrees.

• United States Army Command and General Staff College graduate.

• U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam officer.

• Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program graduate.

• U.S. Department of Commerce White House Fellow.

• General Motors Pontiac Motor Division executive.

• Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Detroit Branch Office chairman.

There also are honorary degrees, lifetime achievement awards, military medals and participation on public and private boards as a chair and member. 

A Topeka, Kansas, native, Anderson was a student at an all-Black school in that city. It was part of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision 70 years ago — Brown v. Board of Education. The unanimous decision declared that state laws creating separate public schools for Black and white students were unconstitutional. 

Fast forward to the present day. The 81-year-old serial entrepreneur nurtures and grows minority-owned businesses. 

Created in 2001 as an independent holding company, privately held TAG Holdings acquires companies and infuses them with the capital and expertise to build and grow their operations. It is based in Wixom, Michigan, near Detroit. Through its history, TAG Holdings has participated in 15 acquisitions and joint ventures in North America, Korea and China. The company is focused on industry sectors that include automotive, heavy equipment, agriculture, aerospace and defense. Its services include supply-chain management, vacuum impregnation and modular assembly.

As value propositions go, none is more important to Anderson than helping to ensure the health, development and vitality of minority-owned companies. It is a simple posture and tenet of a business career that continues to drive him. 

“My value proposition is to let folks know it can be done,” he said. 

One way Anderson fulfilled that value proposition was by bringing seven seasoned Black executives into TAG Holdings, leveraging their management expertise and assisting them financially to run their own enterprises. 

“My story is not about me,” he said. “It is about letting other minority entrepreneurs know that these things are out there and can happen. It is about minority business opportunities. I am about creating wealth in the Black community.”

Creating millionaires and billionaires

One of the jewels among the TAG Holdings portfolio companies is Wolverine Assemblies LLC, a global provider of manufacturing, warehousing and supply-chain management services led by Al Hall, president and chief operating officer. Anderson points to his business relationship with Hall as a shining example of the worth of TAG Holdings. 

Hall has more than 40 years automotive industry experience — including at General Motors Co. (GM), that overlapped Anderson’s tenure there. Anderson needed an executive who could bring new leadership to Wolverine Assemblies, and Hall brought with him a reputation for leveraging lean and agile production technology and manufacturing methodology. He joined Wolverine Assemblies in 2019. 

“I wanted him to come in, operate it, bring in new business and make it more efficient,” Anderson said, adding that Hall’s performance was stellar, and he subsequently purchased Wolverine Assemblies in 2022.

He said one of the features of his and Hall’s collaboration came through a recommendation he made to Gentex Corp., a majority-owned technology company and supplier of electro-optical products to the automotive sector and other industries. He holds a seat on the Gentex board of directors and learned during a board meeting that Gentex required warehousing facilities to store glass for automotive mirror assembly near its Zeeland, Michigan, headquarters. In stepped Wolverine Assemblies, which operated a 200,000-square-foot warehouse in Wixom.

The deal proved beneficial to both Gentex and Wolverine, and the two companies entered into a joint venture that was announced at a Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council procurement conference in May 2024. In fact, Gentex President and CEO Steve Downing joined Anderson and Hall on a conference panel to discuss the strategy behind the collaboration and its impact on minority wealth creation and community development. 

“We’re facilitating others to be business owners,” he said of TAG Holdings. “I am looking to create millionaires and billionaires. The whole thing is to have other minority suppliers wanting to create opportunities for each other to take advantage of circumstances that come up. That is the legacy I am trying to share.”

A motivator and stimulator

When it comes to entrepreneurship, give Anderson a bullhorn and he’ll shout to the rooftops about the merits of individual business ownership and corporate supplier diversity. 

During his time at GM, he ascended to the executive ranks from various manufacturing assignments, including his elevation to plant manager of the Pontiac Motor Division’s Pressed Metal and Plating Operations. He then went on to assignments that included director of the Exterior Systems Business Unit of GM’s Inland Fisher Guide Division and general director, Body Hardware Business Unit of the Inland Fisher Guide Division. 

At the height of his GM tenure, Anderson led more than 7,000 employees and was responsible for annual revenue of $1 billion. 

Yet after 13 years at GM — historically the world’s No. 1 automaker — he moved on to satisfy his entrepreneurial urgings. He said his time at GM was akin to running a business — except it did not belong to him. 

“I was in entrepreneurship at General Motors where I had a $1 billion revenue business and 7,000 people working for me. I had three plants around the country. I was running a business,” Anderson said. “But that was General Motors. The equipment belonged to General Motors. The sales and revenue were not mine. I didn’t own anything there.”

For him, entrepreneurship represents a ticket to creating wealth in this country, affording business owners like him the “ability to control my destiny.” He calls entrepreneurship a “motivator and stimulator” for personal growth and development.

“I own the companies I operate,” Anderson said. “And I create the wealth associated with it.”

He has always been a leader of people — going back to Topeka, his military days and his business career. He still relishes that opportunity. Simply put: Leading is what he does. 

“I like leading people. I learned how to lead people and ask the right questions, and that prepared me for owning my own companies,” Anderson said. 

One thing is for certain about him — slowing down is not part of his vocabulary. He said he still has much work to do, including facilitating new business deals. 

“I am always wondering about the future. I continue to acquire companies. I was on a phone call today with a finance group working on setting up the next company, and there are other scenarios that I am evaluating,” Anderson said. 

To learn more about Tag, visit taghold.com