What does it look like to live with full curiosity and zero apology for 83 years? For Doug Glant, it looks like a life that defies a single category: Stanford historian, Cold War intelligence operative, sixth-decade CEO of a 108-year-old family business, youth football coach during the civil rights movement, Husky football scout, and the cousin of Jack Benny.
In this episode of What Fuels You, host Shauna Sperland sits down with one of Seattle's most quietly extraordinary figures for a conversation that spans eras, continents, and careers. They cover covert intelligence work in Vietnam and China, family business succession at Pacific Iron and Metal, gold market predictions, a Mossad officer's rule about secrets, Churchill's words before the 1991 Rose Bowl, and what it truly means to be contented rather than just happy.
📋 Episode Chapters
| 00:00 | Rapid fire: most inspiring teachers, favorite Husky game, and a quote from Hamlet |
| 09:30 | Growing up Jewish in postwar Seattle's Mount Baker District; a photographic memory that starts at age 2 |
| 14:00 | Choosing Stanford over Harvard and Yale, paying his own way, and getting kicked out |
| 19:45 | The DIA, Vietnam 1969, China while Mao was alive, and 18 years of covert intelligence work |
| 28:00 | Pacific Iron and Metal: 108 years old, precious metals, gold market outlook, and succession to son Ryan |
| 33:00 | Family business do's and don'ts: read Hamlet, step aside completely, and never hire family for roles they can't fill |
| 35:20 | Coaching Black youth in the Rainier Valley during the civil rights era and the lifetime of impact that followed |
| 39:10 | Husky football, Warren Moon, Don James, and Churchill's words before the 1991 national championship |
| 43:30 | Ambassadorships turned down, CIA number three, UW Law School, and the sliding doors of a remarkable life |
| 46:00 | What fuels Doug Glant: interesting people, contentment over happiness, and a photographic memory he still uses as a gift |
The Moment That Made It Personal
Doug Glant has been curious about the world since before most people can form memories. At age 6, he listened alone on a bedroom radio to H.V. Kaltenborn announce Harry Truman's improbable upset over Thomas Dewey in 1948, while no one else in his family paid attention. At age 2, he has vivid, confirmed memories: his second birthday party during a bout of flu, and being sent by his grandparents to hug the family's German gardener on VE Day in May 1945.
That photographic memory, which Glant still relies on at 83, shapes everything about how he moves through the world. When Shauna Sperland asks him what fuels him, his answer is immediate: interesting people. And the way to be interesting, he says, is to be genuinely interested.
"If a person wants to be interesting, they have to be interested. What are you reading? And what are you getting from it?"
— Doug Glant
He grew up in Seattle's Mount Baker neighborhood, the son and grandson of businessmen, a Jewish kid in postwar America who understood even then that his circumstances were exceptional. "I knew that it was incredible," he told Sperland. "The sports, the fresh air, the great public education. It was a wonderful time and place to grow up. And I knew it."
Eighteen Years in the Shadows: DIA, CIA, and the Rules of Secrecy
The intelligence chapter of Doug Glant's life is one most of his Seattle contemporaries never knew existed. Beginning around 1968, following a call from Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson's office asking whether he was still willing to go to Vietnam, Glant spent 18 years as a civilian operative working with the Defense Intelligence Agency and later the CIA. He traveled to Saigon in February 1969, a year after the Tet Offensive, under cover of buying and selling scrap metal in Asia.
"I told my father and later my first wife that I was going to Asia to buy metal and I can't call you for a week or two because I'll be out of range. You couldn't do that now."
— Doug Glant
Over those 18 years he traveled to Vietnam, China (in 1976, while Mao Zedong was still alive), and the Middle East, working alongside some of the world's most accomplished intelligence professionals. One of them, a senior Mossad official, shared a rule that Glant still applies in business today.
"If more than one person knows something, it's not a secret. Assume that nothing is secret when you go about your business."
— Senior Mossad Official, as recalled by Doug Glant
The work ended in 1987 when Glant declined a mission to Afghanistan to verify whether CIA-supplied Stinger missiles were reaching the mujahideen. His father was dying. He was going through a divorce. His children needed him. "They said, 'Well, then you're no more eyes-only status,'" he recalled. "That was the end." Only one person had known during those 18 years: his close friend Jimmy Greenfield, who died of a heart attack the following year at age 44.
Pacific Iron and Metal: How a 108-Year-Old Business Actually Works
Founded by Glant's grandfather in 1917 and headquartered in Seattle's SODO neighborhood for the past 90 years, Pacific Iron and Metal began as a heavy industrial scrap operation serving Western Washington's manufacturing base. Under Glant's six-decade leadership, it evolved substantially. Today the business centers on precious metals, specifically gold, silver, and platinum, serving jewelers, dentists, industrial manufacturers, and government and military clients.
The gold side of the business has proved especially timely. Glant views elevated gold prices as a direct economic signal.
"I used to say if gold's at $1,000 an ounce, that's a normal temperature, 98.6. We have a high fever right now. It shows a lack of confidence in the US dollar and in the global economy."
— Doug Glant
His advice to anyone holding gold: sit on it. "It's ultimately going to be $5,000 or more," he said. The fabric and home sewing retail business, which once included more than 30 stores, has been consolidated to a single location at the company's headquarters.
On Family Business Succession: Read Hamlet First
Glant is blunt about the perils of family-run companies. His first piece of advice is simply: don't. "Read Hamlet," he said. "That's a family business story. Or King Lear." If you proceed, he has a clear framework drawn from six decades of experience: run the business as a business, never place a family member in a role they are not qualified for, know when to step away and give the next generation full authority, and study models that actually work, like Nordstrom, the Pigotts at PACCAR, and the Rosens at Alaska Copper.
When his son Ryan wanted to join the company roughly ten years ago, Glant initially advised against it. Ryan was a rising M&A attorney at Perkins Coie. His advisory board overruled him. Once Ryan came aboard, Glant stepped fully aside. "I left him alone to run the company to this day," he said.
The Rainier Valley, the Civil Rights Era, and a Lifetime of Impact
Beginning in 1965, Glant spent years coaching youth football in Seattle's Rainier Valley, working primarily with Black kids during one of the most turbulent periods in American history. He served as a liaison between the FBI, Seattle Police, and community leaders, meeting in churches to navigate the tensions around the Black Panther movement. He had players whose uncles were Black Panthers. He brought kids into his home at a time when, as they later told him, he was the first white person ever to do so.
"Coaching those kids changed my life. Last Thursday, Kristen and I were in Phoenix for the wedding of a young woman I coached. The father called me up to give her away. I am like her second dad."
— Doug Glant
His teams won six city championships. At the time this episode was recorded, he was preparing to give the eulogy the following morning for his best player from that era.
Husky Football, Warren Moon, and the 1991 National Championship
Glant's relationship with University of Washington athletics spans nearly eight decades and includes a unique behind-the-scenes role that few fans ever get. His scouting involvement started organically as a Stanford freshman when he tipped head coach Jim Owens to a prospect in the Bay Area. When Don James arrived in 1975, Glant and his father hosted the first welcoming party in James's honor, attended by the elder Nordstroms, Sam Spencers, and much of Seattle's civic establishment. By 1977, during Warren Moon's senior season, Glant was on the sideline with his camera. He stayed there for the rest of Don James's tenure.
The night before the 1991 Rose Bowl, which the Huskies won to claim the national championship, Glant addressed the team and drew on a wartime Churchill quote he had always carried with him.
"Never, never, never, never quit."
— Winston Churchill, quoted by Doug Glant to the 1991 UW Huskies the night before their Rose Bowl victory
The phrase appeared on the pads of that national championship team when they took the field the next day.
Contentment, Curiosity, and What Fuels Him at 83
Glant's approach to his eighties is marked by intellectual discipline and genuine self-sufficiency. He reads five or six books at a time, writes two regular blogs on history and politics, spends five to six hours a day in research, hikes two to three hours daily regardless of weather, and listens extensively to jazz and classical music. He draws a distinction that is worth writing down.
"I'm happy when the Huskies win, but to be contented is a more lasting feeling. If my family are contented and healthy, if I'm still able to read and think and teach and engage, that fuels me."
— Doug Glant
He turned down the U.S. ambassadorship to Costa Rica and then Argentina in 1981, a senior CIA post, and a spot at UW Law School. He was National Chairman for Business during the Reagan-Bush 1980 campaign. He says he regrets the paths not taken. But he holds those regrets alongside the life he actually built: a wife, four sons, five grandchildren, and a community of people across Seattle whose lives are measurably different because he showed up.
5 Key Takeaways
What does it look like to live with full curiosity and zero apology for 83 years? For Doug Glant, it looks like a life that defies a single category: Stanford historian, Cold War intelligence operative, sixth-decade CEO of a 108-year-old family business, youth football coach during the civil rights movement, Husky football scout, and the cousin of Jack Benny.
In this episode of What Fuels You, host Shauna Sperland sits down with one of Seattle's most quietly extraordinary figures for a conversation that spans eras, continents, and careers. They cover covert intelligence work in Vietnam and China, family business succession at Pacific Iron and Metal, gold market predictions, a Mossad officer's rule about secrets, Churchill's words before the 1991 Rose Bowl, and what it truly means to be contented rather than just happy.
📋 Episode Chapters
| 00:00 | Rapid fire: most inspiring teachers, favorite Husky game, and a quote from Hamlet |
| 09:30 | Growing up Jewish in postwar Seattle's Mount Baker District; a photographic memory that starts at age 2 |
| 14:00 | Choosing Stanford over Harvard and Yale, paying his own way, and getting kicked out |
| 19:45 | The DIA, Vietnam 1969, China while Mao was alive, and 18 years of covert intelligence work |
| 28:00 | Pacific Iron and Metal: 108 years old, precious metals, gold market outlook, and succession to son Ryan |
| 33:00 | Family business do's and don'ts: read Hamlet, step aside completely, and never hire family for roles they can't fill |
| 35:20 | Coaching Black youth in the Rainier Valley during the civil rights era and the lifetime of impact that followed |
| 39:10 | Husky football, Warren Moon, Don James, and Churchill's words before the 1991 national championship |
| 43:30 | Ambassadorships turned down, CIA number three, UW Law School, and the sliding doors of a remarkable life |
| 46:00 | What fuels Doug Glant: interesting people, contentment over happiness, and a photographic memory he still uses as a gift |
The Moment That Made It Personal
Doug Glant has been curious about the world since before most people can form memories. At age 6, he listened alone on a bedroom radio to H.V. Kaltenborn announce Harry Truman's improbable upset over Thomas Dewey in 1948, while no one else in his family paid attention. At age 2, he has vivid, confirmed memories: his second birthday party during a bout of flu, and being sent by his grandparents to hug the family's German gardener on VE Day in May 1945.
That photographic memory, which Glant still relies on at 83, shapes everything about how he moves through the world. When Shauna Sperland asks him what fuels him, his answer is immediate: interesting people. And the way to be interesting, he says, is to be genuinely interested.
"If a person wants to be interesting, they have to be interested. What are you reading? And what are you getting from it?"
— Doug Glant
He grew up in Seattle's Mount Baker neighborhood, the son and grandson of businessmen, a Jewish kid in postwar America who understood even then that his circumstances were exceptional. "I knew that it was incredible," he told Sperland. "The sports, the fresh air, the great public education. It was a wonderful time and place to grow up. And I knew it."
Eighteen Years in the Shadows: DIA, CIA, and the Rules of Secrecy
The intelligence chapter of Doug Glant's life is one most of his Seattle contemporaries never knew existed. Beginning around 1968, following a call from Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson's office asking whether he was still willing to go to Vietnam, Glant spent 18 years as a civilian operative working with the Defense Intelligence Agency and later the CIA. He traveled to Saigon in February 1969, a year after the Tet Offensive, under cover of buying and selling scrap metal in Asia.
"I told my father and later my first wife that I was going to Asia to buy metal and I can't call you for a week or two because I'll be out of range. You couldn't do that now."
— Doug Glant
Over those 18 years he traveled to Vietnam, China (in 1976, while Mao Zedong was still alive), and the Middle East, working alongside some of the world's most accomplished intelligence professionals. One of them, a senior Mossad official, shared a rule that Glant still applies in business today.
"If more than one person knows something, it's not a secret. Assume that nothing is secret when you go about your business."
— Senior Mossad Official, as recalled by Doug Glant
The work ended in 1987 when Glant declined a mission to Afghanistan to verify whether CIA-supplied Stinger missiles were reaching the mujahideen. His father was dying. He was going through a divorce. His children needed him. "They said, 'Well, then you're no more eyes-only status,'" he recalled. "That was the end." Only one person had known during those 18 years: his close friend Jimmy Greenfield, who died of a heart attack the following year at age 44.
Pacific Iron and Metal: How a 108-Year-Old Business Actually Works
Founded by Glant's grandfather in 1917 and headquartered in Seattle's SODO neighborhood for the past 90 years, Pacific Iron and Metal began as a heavy industrial scrap operation serving Western Washington's manufacturing base. Under Glant's six-decade leadership, it evolved substantially. Today the business centers on precious metals, specifically gold, silver, and platinum, serving jewelers, dentists, industrial manufacturers, and government and military clients.
The gold side of the business has proved especially timely. Glant views elevated gold prices as a direct economic signal.
"I used to say if gold's at $1,000 an ounce, that's a normal temperature, 98.6. We have a high fever right now. It shows a lack of confidence in the US dollar and in the global economy."
— Doug Glant
His advice to anyone holding gold: sit on it. "It's ultimately going to be $5,000 or more," he said. The fabric and home sewing retail business, which once included more than 30 stores, has been consolidated to a single location at the company's headquarters.
On Family Business Succession: Read Hamlet First
Glant is blunt about the perils of family-run companies. His first piece of advice is simply: don't. "Read Hamlet," he said. "That's a family business story. Or King Lear." If you proceed, he has a clear framework drawn from six decades of experience: run the business as a business, never place a family member in a role they are not qualified for, know when to step away and give the next generation full authority, and study models that actually work, like Nordstrom, the Pigotts at PACCAR, and the Rosens at Alaska Copper.
When his son Ryan wanted to join the company roughly ten years ago, Glant initially advised against it. Ryan was a rising M&A attorney at Perkins Coie. His advisory board overruled him. Once Ryan came aboard, Glant stepped fully aside. "I left him alone to run the company to this day," he said.
The Rainier Valley, the Civil Rights Era, and a Lifetime of Impact
Beginning in 1965, Glant spent years coaching youth football in Seattle's Rainier Valley, working primarily with Black kids during one of the most turbulent periods in American history. He served as a liaison between the FBI, Seattle Police, and community leaders, meeting in churches to navigate the tensions around the Black Panther movement. He had players whose uncles were Black Panthers. He brought kids into his home at a time when, as they later told him, he was the first white person ever to do so.
"Coaching those kids changed my life. Last Thursday, Kristen and I were in Phoenix for the wedding of a young woman I coached. The father called me up to give her away. I am like her second dad."
— Doug Glant
His teams won six city championships. At the time this episode was recorded, he was preparing to give the eulogy the following morning for his best player from that era.
Husky Football, Warren Moon, and the 1991 National Championship
Glant's relationship with University of Washington athletics spans nearly eight decades and includes a unique behind-the-scenes role that few fans ever get. His scouting involvement started organically as a Stanford freshman when he tipped head coach Jim Owens to a prospect in the Bay Area. When Don James arrived in 1975, Glant and his father hosted the first welcoming party in James's honor, attended by the elder Nordstroms, Sam Spencers, and much of Seattle's civic establishment. By 1977, during Warren Moon's senior season, Glant was on the sideline with his camera. He stayed there for the rest of Don James's tenure.
The night before the 1991 Rose Bowl, which the Huskies won to claim the national championship, Glant addressed the team and drew on a wartime Churchill quote he had always carried with him.
"Never, never, never, never quit."
— Winston Churchill, quoted by Doug Glant to the 1991 UW Huskies the night before their Rose Bowl victory
The phrase appeared on the pads of that national championship team when they took the field the next day.
Contentment, Curiosity, and What Fuels Him at 83
Glant's approach to his eighties is marked by intellectual discipline and genuine self-sufficiency. He reads five or six books at a time, writes two regular blogs on history and politics, spends five to six hours a day in research, hikes two to three hours daily regardless of weather, and listens extensively to jazz and classical music. He draws a distinction that is worth writing down.
"I'm happy when the Huskies win, but to be contented is a more lasting feeling. If my family are contented and healthy, if I'm still able to read and think and teach and engage, that fuels me."
— Doug Glant
He turned down the U.S. ambassadorship to Costa Rica and then Argentina in 1981, a senior CIA post, and a spot at UW Law School. He was National Chairman for Business during the Reagan-Bush 1980 campaign. He says he regrets the paths not taken. But he holds those regrets alongside the life he actually built: a wife, four sons, five grandchildren, and a community of people across Seattle whose lives are measurably different because he showed up.
