Patti Goldberg wants you to know she’s no bounty hunter. In fact, she says, if she does a good job of sizing up the risk that her customers won’t make their court dates, county courts don’t have to send warrant officers our to find them and haul them in. A century of customer data helps. Goldberg runs Goldberg Bonding Company, the business that her grandfather opened 100 years ago this month in St. Paul and that’s since expanded to every county seat in the state
In three generations of business, “there’s a very good chance I’ve bailed out the grandfather, the father, and the son. I mean, we really get to know our customers well,” Goldberg says. No tough-gal flippancy here, though. “A lot of women—a lot of mothers, fiancées, daughters, wives—end up being the cosigners [on bail bonds]. I get it: By the grace of God, no one had to bail me out or my kids.”
