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oday, the company has 134 employees who help serve most of the private schools and offices, even government offices also trusted them for their credibility of dealing only in high quality products.
THE GOLDEN YEARS OF GH OFFICE DEPOT By ARMANDO B. FENEQUITO JR. abf@edgedavao.net
It started as a sideline of He Pao Go, a Chinese entrepreneur, but today it is a major source of office and school supplies in Davao City. This is the humble beginning of well-known supplier, GH Office and Supply Depot, now celebrating its 50th year. According to Ken C. Go, purchasing manager of the company, GH Office Depot began as a secondary source of income for his father who focused his attention on Davao Lumber Corporation as part owner. Go said that the business started in wholesale of
imported staplers and hand tools from China. Since his father was not yet a Filipino citizen, he was not allowed to engage in the retail business. At the time, the Go children were still very young, a reason their father ran the business alone. It was only when they reached college age that they began helping manage the business. Paul C. Go, president of the company, said that the business was established in their house on Monteverde Avenue, which is today the site of their building. He considered it a remote area since
R. Magsaysay Avenue was the center of trade at the time. The company president said that they did their business through telephone transaction and their father delivered the goods himself since they still did not have employees. In 1969, their father hired a driver and a helper to deliver stocks to their clients. Ken said that in the late 1970’s when his father became a Filipino citizen the company began to engage in retail business. For 10 years the company gradually grew and became the major supplier in the city.
Today, the company has 134 employees who help serve most of the private schools and offices, even government offices also trusted them for their credibility of dealing only in high quality products. Paul said they did not consider low prices alone in choosing a supplier, but also the quality. Ken said that their company is the pioneer of the shopping-type setup of retailing in which the customer can freely choose the products they want. He said that in the earlier days customers FTHE GOLDEN, 12
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From the President
PAUL C. GO
As we mark the 50th Founding Anniversary of our company, we are likewise celebrating God’s grace and love for us these 50 years. It is a testimony of God’s faithfulness and kindness! We never expected that we can be what we are and where we are today. It is only fitting that we offer our eternal gratitude to the Lord! To our customers, we want to extend our most sincere thanks and appreciation for your support and patronage all these years. Your trust and confidence brought us to where we are today. Indeed, we are very fortunate to have been blessed with a group of loyal and supportive customers and clients like you! To our suppliers, thank you
for the quality goods and the highly efficient way you deliver them to us. Thank you, too, for the terms and credits you extended to us. Indeed you have been our indispensible partners all these years. To our staffs, employees and colleagues, you are the prime movers, the people who made things happened and the diligent and competent implementors of our plans and objectives. Thank you for your efforts, your labor and your love for this company. We owe our existence and success to you. Ours is a great partnership. With this milestone, we are confident of an even stronger relationship in the years to come. God bless us all!
Step by step By KEN C. GO
“Every time I come to GH, there is always something new; some new improvements!” This is a remark we often hear from our customers and visitors, who probably wonder if our company has a comprehensive master plan or some grand strategic goals. However, making long-term goals, and trusting them, was not dad’s principle in life. Even in business, dad followed one solid principle – walk with God closely and let Him guide one-step at a time. Instead of expanding his business by leaps and bounds, dad would always take little leaps of faith, with much prayers. He was never one who would use schemes and ploys to grow his business. The use of big hooks to catch big fish was never alluring to him. Instead, he took each step in consultation with the God that he loved and served all his life. In return, God honored his faith and guided Him step by step. Actually, even before the idea of putting up the GH business was in the mind of dad, God had already ordained his steps. Even before dad knew God, in His grace, the Lord was already leading dad towards the
blessings He had in store for him. When dad was only a year or two years old, Go Bian Cam (Gregorio Cam), a town kin of our grandfather in China, was about to start a business in Davao. To supplement the needed capital, grandpa, Go Bian Heng, loaned him some money. By God’s grace, the Davao Lumber Company was established, and it prospered. After some years, instead of repaying the loan, the company gave dad shares in the business, which made him a part owner of the company. This paved the way for him to do business in Davao and gain business experience. Sometime in the 50’s, out of his generosity, dad sold a sizable part of his company shares to provide financial assistance to some relatives. He then used whatever amount left to start a business, the Davao GH Enterprise, in the 60’s. As God led and blessed the new business, dad ventured into several business activities. These include importing office supplies from the U.S.,and buying house-
hold items, such as electric irons, coffee grinders, in bulk from local importers. He also imported ball bearings and pillow blocks from Japan and sold construction supplies such as G.I sheets and G.I. pipes. In the mid 60’s, dad took another step of faith with God and left the Davao Lumber Company – his comfort zone, a business he was enjoying and from which he was receiving much of his income. He started to concentrate on his own business, the Davao G.H. Enterprise, believing that God had ordained him to do so. When the Davao Lumber Company ended its 50 years of incorporation in the late 60’s, they gave dad a lot in Monteverde Street as payment for his share in the business. The property was not a promising one. Swampy and desolate, it was a lot nobody would choose to own. Dad accepted it not only because he had no other choice but also because he believed it was God’s gift to him. As the psalmist wrote in Psalm16:5-6, he accepted the lot
with this prayer of thanks, “LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” This property is now a choicecut, a priced parcel of land, in Davao. It has also become the office and main store of the GH Office Depot, the corporation that has evolved from the Davao GH Enterprise. Dad is now gone to be with the Lord, but his legacy of faith in God remains. Today, the business continues to progress, step by step, under God’s care. Someone once asked, “Does GH have a master plan for expansion? I see progressive expansion. GH was small, but it is growing bigger and bigger.” If dad were still with us now, his likely answer would be, “This is only by God’s grace! We grow step by step as the Lord ordains and prospers us.” As his children, we could not agree more and we certainly say, “Amen! To God be all the glory!”
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The company grace built By DAVID C. GO
People who had seen the humble beginnings of GH Office Depot are often amazed at how God has blessed the company and brought it to where it is today. If they had the chance to ask my late dad about it, they would always hear him say, “It’s all by God’s grace!” Dad’s reply was never a habitual expression of a religious idiom neither were they words uttered in false humility. They were words spoken with sincerity. Dad grew up in a secular Buddhist family. Though he had heard of God when young, God did not matter to him because he was a scholar bent on his studies. When he came to Davao, he set his heart on earning money. This made him care less about God.
But the God that he did not care about cared so much for him. In spite of his ignorance about Him, God blessed all his endeavors and crowned them with success. He gave Him wisdom and understanding. Most important of all, through the Biblical story of the Prodigal Son, God made him realize that, by focusing on gaining wealth at the expense of forgetting God, he had been a prodigal son running away from
his creator and life-giver. The Bible story snapped him out of his foolhardiness and he turned to God for forgiveness. He received Jesus, God’s gift of salvation, by faith and discovered that one can enjoy life to the fullest if one has Him in his heart. He discovered too that God’s goodness and mercy follow those who trust in Him. Through his 98 years, dad continually discovered that God loves Him. Hence, he be-
lieved that, “It’s all by God’s grace!” In turn, Dad tried to be gracious and fair to his customers and employees. He tried to tell people that they could have God’s temporal and eternal grace by trusting in Jesus alone. Now you know why we print John 3:16 on almost everything we have – our letterhead, calendars, vans, etc. We print that because, like our dad, we believe in grace. We believe that “God so loved
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the world, he gave his one and only Son; that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life.” We hope that you would also believe in Jesus and receive His grace today!
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THE GOLDEN YEARS OF GH OFFICE DEPOT were limited to glass cabinets and asking the saleslady to get the items for them to examine. As time went by, the company began to venture into lines of business, not just school and office supplies. Paul said that their company is now selling hardware materials such as hand tools, grinders, hand and electric drills, light construction materials which they started three years ago. They also sell
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such appliances as blenders, washing machines, air conditioners, and other small appliances. The company also sells household items like cooking utensils and home and office furniture, such as tables, chairs and personal hygiene products as well as office partitions and cubicles. They also engage in selling and installing Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras after many clients kept
looking for them when they were in demand. On the other hand, the company is also engaged in leasing property, with three banks renting spaces in their building, particularly PS Bank, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation and East West Bank. Paul stressed the fact that the company came up with other lines of business for sustainability since the business of selling school and of-
fice supplies is seasonal. Aside from that, they also grabbed the opportunity to serve their clients well as they want the company to become a onestop shop and lessen the burden on customers by making the products they need accessible to them. In the 50 years of being the top supplier in the city, GH office and supply depot is planning to expand by building their own supply depot on Diversion road, Ma-a soon.