The Big Event

Faith-Based Initiative

“Paul is who he is,” says retired Twin Cities executive and Army Colonel Paul Bierhaus, who occasionally collaborates on projects with Ridgeway. “There is no phoniness.”

But no one can fully understand Ridgeway or his company, Bierhaus adds, without knowing the depth to which faith has supported his life from early childhood.

Ridgeway, 58, grew up in a tiny house near the railroad tracks between Minnehaha and Hiawatha avenues in South Minneapolis. “It was crowded and there was not a lot of money. We had Christmases with no gifts and no food,” he says. “We used to put bread in water and sprinkle some sugar on it. It was not a treat. It was a meal.”

His mother sustained a household teeming with 11 children—Ridgeway is the eighth—with the enduring devotion of a lifelong evangelical Christian.

Her faith also built a spiritual buttress against the tirades of an alcoholic and abusive husband, who, Ridgeway says, “beat her relentlessly.” One day, when he was six, his mother endured a final thrashing at the hands of her drunken spouse. This time, she struggled up off the kitchen floor and said, “Dewey, God will not allow you to beat me anymore.” Her husband dropped dead on the floor in front of her. A heart attack.

Ridgeway’s mother couldn’t support all of her children. “She worked, worked, worked,” he says, tearing up even now at the memory. She took in ironing, cleaned houses, dished up meals at the airport, and took on a night shift washing dishes at a café on Lake Street. But it was not enough. Paul and several of his siblings were sent to foster homes. He landed in Richfield, where Paul and Edith Lundquist—members, like his mother, of the Salvation Army—gave him food, shelter, and a family through high school.

“Getting into that foster home changed my life,” he says. That, he adds, and the continual presence of the Salvation Army, which gave him lasting spiritual roots.

“He really believes that everything he does in this business and through this business is for the Lord,” Wong says. “That sustains how he works with clients and treats employees. It’s all based on biblical principles.” How does that go over with diverse clients? They respect Ridgeway’s values, “no matter what they personally believe,” she says, because “they know that Christian values are going to come through, that he is always going to be fair and honest with them.”

Says Ridgeway: “My ministry is this business. I am not a full-time pastor, but I am a businessman who needs to be working full time for the Lord.”

He makes his faith manifest in many ways. He hosts a regular Bible study in his conference room. He ministers often to residents of two area nursing homes. And he is a regular speaker at local prayer breakfasts. Ridgeway also serves on the boards of two Twin Cities–based religious groups, the Gospel Association of India and Reconciliation Ministries.