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Ralph Oats drove a truck for 23 years, making at most $38,000 a year. He hated his job and resented the long hours that kept him away from his family. But it was a living.

“Every time I wanted to buy something, Ralph would tell me how many miles he had to drive to buy it,” says his wife, Cathy Oats, a housewife at the time who remembers always having to struggle to make ends meet. Times were especially hard for Ralph Oats when his bad back repeatedly landed him in the hospital for one operation after another. “Each year was the same. We’d sit down with our bills in one hand and the runs Ralph could bid in the other hand, and we’d just budget our poverty.”

In June of 1984, when it came time for the couple’s oldest daughter to graduate high school, Cathy Oats had had enough. “We both wanted Sheri to go to college, but there was just no money,” she says. Frustration soon gave way to determination, as Cathy Oats involved herself in an MLM company selling home water filters. Her goal was simple: earn $100 a week while Ralph Oats was out of town. “I knew what I had to do,” she says. Although Ralph Oats wasn’t too keen on Cathy Oats' plan at first, he certainly took notice when she not only met her goal, she earned $14,000 in four months, working part time.

The two then pooled their efforts, with Ralph Oats quitting his 18-year job to sell water filters alongside Cathy Oats. “We were excited and scared to death,” Ralph Oats says, adding that neither of them had had any sales experience, “but we were determined.” In their first full year in business, the couple earned $100,000. They doubled that amount their second year. After six years, they had built an organization of over 687,000 distributors that sold over a billion dollars in products. In 1990, Ralph Oats and Cathy Oats retired and moved to Florida as millionaires.

Soon after, the couple was introduced to some products that had a dramatic impact on their personal health. With baby boomers like themselves clamoring for nutritional supplements to enhance their lives, Ralph Oats and Cathy Oats recognized that products like these were going to create a tremendous opportunity for the future. “We saw an opportunity that was even greater than the one we had experienced in the 80s,” says Ralph Oats. For the next two years, Ralph Oats and Cathy Oats duplicated their earlier successes, quickly working their way to Top Producer and Top Earner status for a nutritional company while also being named “Masters of Multi-Level Marketing” by Success Magazine.

That’s when Ralph Oats and Cathy Oats decided it was time for the next challenge. The couple had always dreamed of starting their own company, and in October 1992, their dream became a reality. Wellness International Network, Ltd. (WIN) was born.

A New Beginning
Ralph Oats and Cathy Oats dedicated themselves to creating a network marketing company built by distributors for distributors. They knew that in order to be successful on a global scale, they could never lose sight of the needs of those truly seeking an opportunity. Within its first month, WIN recorded an astounding 1.7 million dollars in retail sales. Baby boomers were clamoring for ways to feel better, look better and increase their worth. This success attracted some of the greatest leaders in network marketing.

Throughout the ‘90s, Wellness International Network, Ltd. (WIN) continued to evolve. Global expansion began as early as 1994, with an energetic launch in Holland followed by expansive growth into the United Kingdom, South Africa, Belgium, Spain, Canada and Mexico. With this expansion came new developments in the business plan, including web-based technology, automated ordering systems, and document imaging as well as dual sponsoring, MLM Colleges and luxury cruise incentives.

The opening of the 90,000 square foot corporate headquarters, located in North Dallas’ prestigious Legacy Park campus, cemented the company’s stature in the industry. This building stands as an achievement of the vision Ralph Oats and Cathy Oats started in 1992 – and the belief that success is there for the taking.

A Century of Change
Now in its second decade of business, Wellness International Network, Ltd. (WIN) distributors continue to propel the company forward. The September 2002 launch of WIN Worldwide BV, which is located in the heart of Amsterdam, has not only resulted in an explosion of growth for its distributor base in The Netherlands, but has served as a foundation for further European expansion efforts.

The Wellness International Network, Ltd. (WIN) product line now stretches beyond the weight loss and nutritional supplements category and includes a sports and fitness line, hair and body care products, cosmetics and more.

Ralph and Cathy started with a simple desire to earn an extra $100 a week. The birth of that desire not only paved the way for change in their personal lives, but for the network marketing industry as a whole.