Explore every episode of the podcast Make Good

Make Good is a podcast from Heath Ceramics, co-hosted by Cathy Bailey—Heath’s co-owner and brand steward—and Simone Silverstein, who has worked with Cathy for over 20 years to develop Heath’s brand and tell its story.

Today's guest is Robin Petravic. Robin is Heath's co-owner and brand steward, alongside his business and life partner, Cathy Bailey. A product design engineer by training, Robin’s 22 years at Heath have been largely spent designing the business—a beautiful product in and of itself.

Small disclaimer: We’re not in a sound studio. We have a dog named Ponch wandering around.

The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.

“At some point early on, we realized, this company doesn’t really belong to us. It belongs to the community.” — Robin Petravic

Simone: Robin, you’ve been designing the business—how it operates, how it lasts, how it supports the values and creativity that Heath stands for. How do you describe your role?

Robin: My role here has started out as very hands-on, a little bit of everything in the business. I do have a background in design. Coming in here, I found myself on the running-the-business end of things. I started to see my role as a designer, as designing the business itself—all the little decisions around how it’s run, how it’s structured, its culture and values. Things people feel but may not see, that ultimately show up in how people experience Heath.

Cathy: I know you’re very hands-on. To paint the picture, can you tell us something that people might not think you’ve got your hands dirty doing?

Robin: I have a reputation at Heath of asking a lot of questions, to the point where people wonder why I need to know that level of detail. But I’m not looking for answers so much as letting answers show up. When you really dig in, the direction becomes apparent. It shows up on its own.

Though maybe you were looking for the example of me cutting holes in the factory wall the first time it flooded, to get the water out.

Cathy: Using clay to plug the incoming water. Things like that.

Simone: Isn’t there also a story about the teacups and saucers, very early on?

Robin: Maybe the second week—we were mystified about why we didn’t have the product to fill orders. But we had stacks and stacks of Saucers and Bread & Butter Plates. No inventory system. No production planning. Just sticky notes.

After digging in, we discovered that without planning, our glazers wanted to stay busy. Not just for outward appearances, but because they were there to do a job. Turns out, Saucers and Bread & Butter Plates were the easiest things to make and glaze. It took years—and many dollar-a-saucer sales—to get through them.

Cathy: No cups.

Robin: Cups are hard. Saucers are easy.

I understand that motivation: nobody’s telling me what I should be doing, and I don’t know the big picture, so I’m going to contribute. They just might not be the right pieces. We’re a far, far cry from that today.

Simone: We’re recording in the 1959 factory. Why does this place matter?

Robin: When Cathy and I first stumbled across it, we couldn’t believe a factory like this existed—a stone’s throw from the bay, still doing manufacturing. It was such an anachronism. We were so desperate to see manufacturing in the community where we lived, after so much had gone overseas. It’s a pretty special place. Imbued in history, imbued in culture—not just the building itself, but its location here in Northern California.

Simone: Why is Heath still here? Why does this work matter?

Robin: Companies like Heath matter because they’re part of the culture. They build our cultural story. They create jobs in the community and build connections between people.

Something I noticed very early on: so many people have passed through these doors—employees and customers—who would come up to us with this force, wanting us to know their story, their relationship with the company we’d just acquired. And you start to realize: this company doesn’t really belong to you. It belongs to the community. It’s almost a kind of communal property. When people visit, they bring their friends to Heath the way they might bring them to the Golden Gate Bridge or the Marin Headlands. That’s what culture is built on.

Cathy: Heath also makes objects that connect personally with people. Everything Robin said—and then there’s your own personal connection with the object, the shared memories surrounding it. It gives meaning. These days, as things move faster and faster, you don’t notice when you start to lose those things.

Robin: The stories we’d hear—someone who dug around in the store and found a plate, and could tell us what year it was, what day of the week, what the weather was like. How they met Edith, and she made a special glaze for them. How they’d been through three kids without a single one broken. Now passed on to children and grandchildren. Over and over, with all their individual twists and characters.

Simone: There’s something here about preservation. Cathy, what you said made me think about: once something’s gone, it’s gone.

Cathy: You have a connection with something, and you don’t think about its meaning—and then when it’s gone, you don’t know what you lost until you don’t have it.

Simone: And the people who never knew about it will never know about it.

Robin: There’s also a difference between having a story related to you secondhand or to read about a story and then to actually experience it firsthand. It’s why, from the very beginning, we wanted to bring people into the factory, something we got personally excited about in a very natural way, but wanted to share and really engage with that experience of seeing how things were made and the people that made them. The work that went into it and the pride.

People will come up and tell me about how they took a tour, met somebody trimming a bowl, knew they were there, and had a big smile on their face, and show them what they did. There was so much pride that went into the making of things, and something that they weren’t expecting.

Cathy: Robin, that made me think of something. You love a good spreadsheet.

Robin: I love a good spreadsheet.

Cathy: But it’s always been your philosophy that you can’t run this business by spreadsheet.

Robin: A spreadsheet is really important for organizing and understanding things. But ultimately, intuition has to come into play. Otherwise, you miss the part about people. There’s a wonderful book by E.F. Schumacher called Small Is Beautiful—the subtitle is Economics as if People Mattered. You have to have the data—but then you have to weave in the human element. That feeling doesn’t come from a spreadsheet.

Cathy: It’s so hard to put words to what those of us who’ve been here a long time just feel our way through. Heath’s Purpose is to keep artisanal craft alive through products and experiences rooted in designing and making.

Simone: Why those words? They were not random.

Robin: This whole process was very difficult. We didn’t realize for a long time that it was really just putting words to what we were already doing, what we already knew. And sometimes that’s the hardest thing—to put words to what you innately understand and feel.

Cathy: At one point, our Purpose was something like—we wanted to do things that felt like a song.

Robin: Creating products and experiences that felt like a song. Part of the conversation was that a lot of people like different types of music, right? So, feeling like a song in a lot of ways ends up being too open to interpretation. We could be saying it feels like a John Coltrane song, and forty years from now, someone comes in and it’s death metal.

Cathy: People love death metal. It was just confusing. And anyway, we weren’t making songs.

Robin: We were very excited about an idea that felt so meaningful—and then when you try it out…

Simone: Why does Heath’s Purpose matter so much, given the Purpose Trust structure?

Robin: A Purpose Trust separates financial interest from the company’s existence and Purpose. There is no individual financial interest in the business. The company is guided only by its Purpose and the Objectives under that Purpose. We’re taking it out of the sphere of private ownership entirely.

Simone: How did Heath get here?

Cathy: We’ve been thinking about this problem since day one—since seeing what almost happened to Heath. Brian and Edith didn’t think about succession successfully.

Robin: So from day one, we thought about it. We said: we’re not going to end up in the same place. How do we ensure Heath continues with the same Purpose, values, and contribution it’s been making all this time?

We looked at ESOPs—we were actually a partial ESOP for a number of years. But it didn’t solve the long-term-ism problem we were trying to solve. And we found out that ESOPs are ultimately directed to maximize financial benefits.

Cathy: It sounded good. Lots of people we liked were doing it.

Robin: Then one day, I got a call from our friend Ari Weinzweig, one of the founding partners of Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor.

Cathy: Simone actually introduced us to Ari.

Simone: I did. That’s how I earned my keep here.

Robin: Ari called and said, “I found a new model I think you’d be really interested in. Succession without selling out.” That was Purpose Trust. He introduced us to Natalie Reitman-White, who had shepherded a company called Organically Grown through a Purpose Trust transition. It felt like it addressed many of the concerns we had about traditional capitalism. Capitalism itself isn’t a bad thing—but the way it’s been structured here in the US didn’t sit comfortably with us.

Cathy: We were instantly aligned. She explained it, and we said—yes, that’s it. It checks every single box. And then, while we were traveling, Patagonia announced they’d become a Purpose Trust-Owned business. Suddenly, people knew what it was. Before that, almost nobody did.

Robin: What we realized—ultimately—is that what we’ve been doing for 23-odd years is stewardship. The Purpose is the words that guide that. Not some individual idea we’re saying must be followed from the grave.

Cathy: It’s about what you keep and develop, and what you let go. People can keep what’s good and grow with it—but adapt, because you have to. You can’t hold on to absolutely everything. But you maintain that core.

Robin: A Purpose Trust provides the stability of knowing where the ship is still going. Things don’t get broken up, pulled apart, or sold off. The Purpose guides the trust in the same direction.

“Many businesses start with the purpose of being sold. That is not the Purpose here.” — Cathy Bailey

Robin: So, why bother? Maybe there is an alternative way to do business that serves the financial interests of more than a few people. The spreadsheet has too much power.

Simone: Mic drop.

Thanks for reading, listening, and for being here with us.

Next episode: For the Long Haul—how we think long term, and what it means to run a creative, craft-based business that still needs to earn a profit.

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In Episode 6 of Make Good, we're joined by Natalie Chanin—maker, community builder, and longtime Heath collaborator—for a conversation about friendship and being In Good Company.

In Episode 5 of Make Good, we talk about keeping design, making, selling, and shipping under one roof. Not the easiest way to run a business, but the only one we want to run.

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