Consumer >> CEO Interviews >> January 19, 2004
ROBERT L. MONTGOMERY is President and Chief Executive Officer of Reliv
International, Inc. He founded Relv International in 1988, along with
his wife Sandra, after they experienced personal benefits from the
nutritional discoveries of their friend Dr. Theodore P. Kalogris.
Between 1970 and 1980, Mr. Montgomery distinguished himself in the
business world, becoming Executive Vice President and second largest
shareholder of Modern Income Life Insurance Company, now based in
Phoenix, Arizona. He helped build the company into a $250 million
business before selling his stock and retiring at age 38. He came out of
retirement in 1981 to help start Spectrum Foods, a food research and
manufacturing firm in Decatur, Illinois, that developed such consumable
products as soybean ice cream and soymilk. He sold that company in 1985,
but his interest in developing healthy products remained. Motivated even
more by rapid recovery from brain surgery, the Montgomerys investigated
a way to bring Dr. Kalogris' nutritional supplementation to market.
Relv International, using the direct sales concept of network
marketing, was born. Profile
TWST: Would you begin with a brief overview of Reliv International?Mr. Montgomery: We started our company back in 1988 in Decatur,
Illinois, and we are now in our 16th year. We started with