Walking along Bethesda Avenue near the Five Guys restaurant in downtown Bethesda, it's easy to miss the corporate headquarters of multimillion-dollar beverage business Honest Tea, even with its huge "T" above the entrance.

That's how co-founder, President and "TeaEO" Seth Goldman wants it. His company is not about making flashy outward impressions. He is a man on a mission that goes beyond serving people tea, lemonade and other beverages with less sugar than most commercial drinks.

Inside on the second floor, Goldman greets a reporter in a conference room heavy with glass windows, not far from his desk that is out in the open with the rest of the employees in the spacious room. Goldman is dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, which he says is his normal work attire during warmer weather. Only one person in the office sports a tie, and that is the reporter, who loosens it and jokingly apologizes for being overdressed.

Goldman laughs. "We believe in being comfortable here," he says.

As the 44-year-old head of the nation's top-selling organic bottled tea company, Goldman has a lot to smile about these days. Even during the recession, sales at Honest Tea have shot upward and are expected to hit $70 million this year — up from $48 million last year. His company continues to rack up awards and honors, including one for its telecommuting policies in June from Inc. magazine and Winning Workplaces. He recently received an honorary law degree from American University, where he gave the commencement address for the Kogod School of Business.

Along the way, Goldman has done things his way, implementing an array of employee benefits along with corporate social responsibility and environmental measures. Some 60 percent of employees telecommute. They are reimbursed for health club memberships, and receive tuition assistance, paid leave for volunteer activities and subsidies for transportation. The 5,800-square-foot main office employs many environmentally friendly features, including recycled-rubber floors in the kitchen and hallways, a kitchen island made of recycled glass and concrete and used bricks from a Baltimore construction site.

Even the 2008 purchase by Coca-Cola of a 40 percent interest in Honest Tea for a reported $43 million — which some feared would compromise its environmental and employee-friendly mission — has served to boost the brand and spread its products to more customers.

Goldman succeeded in building a brand based on "integrity, authenticity and purity" not by luck, but by "absolute choice, hard work and an unwavering commitment to his values and his mission," says Jeff Swartz, president and CEO of outdoor wear company Timberland of Stratham, N.H., another strong proponent of corporate social responsibility. "He's the reason Honest Tea is the beloved brand it is today."

From lemonade stands to Honest Ade

Goldman had an entrepreneurial spirit at an early age, operating lemonade stands and newspaper delivery routes. But he says his parents, Merle Goldman, a retired professor of Chinese history at Boston University, and Marshall Goldman, a retired professor from the Wellesley College Department of Economics and expert on Russian economics and policies, also worked to instill values in him to "lead a life of purpose" during long dinner discussions about international issues and "big ideas."

"More importantly than the dinner discussions, my parents taught me those lessons by the way they led their lives," Goldman says.

After earning a government degree from Harvard University in 1987, he worked for a year in China and 18 months in Russia. An avid runner and cyclist who still bikes to work, Goldman wasn't satisfied with the tea products on the market that he says were either too sugary or too tasteless. While working on his master's degree at the Yale School of Management in the mid-1990s, Goldman spoke with one of his professors, Barry Nalebuff, the Milton Steinbach Professor of Economics and Management, who agreed something was missing in the tea market.

"He was a star back then," Nalebuff says of Goldman. "We talked about his entrepreneurial ideas, and I knew that this was someone I wanted to stay in contact with."

Despite his enthusiasm and star quality, Goldman couldn't pursue the idea right after graduating from Yale.

"I had to get a job that paid," he says.

So Goldman directed an AmeriCorps program in Baltimore and was deputy press secretary for then-Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D). He then managed the marketing and sales efforts for socially responsible mutual funds with Calvert Group in Bethesda. He made an impression on D. Wayne Silby, co-founder of Calvert and founding co-chairman of the Calvert Foundation, on whose board Goldman serves. The foundation was formed by Calvert and other foundations to invest in organizations that rehabilitate homes and help people living in low-income communities.

"I came to admire his ideas and sense of responsibility for the community and the environment," Silby says. "He has built a successful company and brand based on the values of sustainability."

The idea of developing a natural, more flavorful tea wouldn't leave Goldman alone. In 1997, after a run with a friend nicknamed "Juice Master Zeus," Goldman e-mailed Nalebuff, asking him if he still was interested in the idea. Nalebuff had just returned from India, where he was writing a case study on a top tea business operated by Tata and learned that most of the tea purchased by U.S. companies for bottling was from the leftover, lower-quality dust and fannings.

Goldman was excited to hear that Nalebuff even had a name for an all-natural brand made with real tea leaves that would strive for more honest relationships with customers and the environment: Honest Tea.

"That clicked with me," Goldman says. They also considered a more general name such as "Positive Juices," although he admits that one sounded a little too clinical.

The duo started out using it as one word, Honestea, which Nalebuff says would have been better for trademarks because it is a made-up word. But there were problems with people knowing how to pronounce it, and Nestea's makers blocked the trademark because it could be read as "Ho-Nestea," Nalebuff says.

"In the end, it all turned out for the best. Honest Tea is much more flexible," Nalebuff says. They also considered creating a pun for each tea variety, such as Tranquilitea. But they realized that would have been "too cute."

Quitting his secure job with Calvert when he had a young family was risky, Goldman acknowledges. "But it's never a perfect time to launch a new company," he says.

With about $500,000 raised from relatives and friends, Goldman and Nalebuff formed their company in 1998, brewing tea batches in Goldman's kitchen. They searched for stores that would stock the drinks. After taking samples in thermos bottles and a bottle with a mock-up label to Fresh Fields, now part of Whole Foods Market, they received an order for 15,000 bottles. They were off.

That first year, Honest Tea grossed some $250,000. Encouraged, Goldman and Nalebuff found more takers, including Giant Food, Harris Teeter and Food Emporium. They developed their first organic tea, First Nation Peppermint, through a partnership with the Crow Indians of Montana, buying peppermint from them and returning a portion of sales. They unveiled Decaf Ceylon, a naturally decaffeinated black tea. In 1999, company revenues rose to $1.1 million, and then about doubled in 2000 and 2001.

A lot of entrepreneurs in the late 1990s were starting Internet and technology companies and flipping them to make millions. Goldman, who won Ernst & Young's 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the mid-Atlantic region, says that never interested him.

"I wanted to create a brand and business idea that was meaningful to people," he says. "I wanted it to be about long-term value."

While some investors wondered why Honest Tea didn't incorporate in a state such as Vermont or New Hampshire, Goldman, who was born in Wellesley, Mass., and graduated from Noble and Greenough High School in Dedham, Mass., says Bethesda is a great place to start a business such as his.

He cites the influence of a nonprofit, Bethesda Green, that he co-founded with Montgomery County Council member George L. Leventhal (D-At large) of Takoma Park, which has opened a green business incubator, installed recycling bins downtown and helped restaurants convert used cooking grease into biodiesel.

"We have attracted a lot of interest and support from businesses and individuals," Goldman says.

Passion for his work

Many people who have worked with Goldman cite his passion for the job, even after a dozen years.

"The very first time we met, I found Seth Goldman so compelling, so passionate in his vision, that I invested in the company and joined its board. His passion is that powerful," says Swartz, who is no longer on Honest Tea's board.

Gary Hirshberg, "CE-Yo" of Stonyfield Farm, a Londonderry, N.H., yogurt maker, who is still on the board of Honest Tea, calls Goldman a "quick study who is always eager to learn and expand his thinking. His moral and ethical compass is in excellent order, and thus, I can always trust that he has the best of intentions."

Nalebuff, who remains Honest Tea's chairman and has written books on business strategy, says he wakes up every morning happy knowing Goldman is leading the company, saying that his former student does the heavy lifting.

"I don't think we've had a single argument in our almost 13 years together," Nalebuff says. "Getting to work with Seth is, in a word, a privilege. He is a role model for me as a leader, a husband, a parent, a community organizer. I just wish I could look more like him, too."

Marketing a great product — a "normal, yummy beverage that wasn't too sweet" — is a big factor in the company's success, Nalebuff says. It also helps to have a leader and a team that "embodied the brand."

"Put a great product idea together with a great team, and that's how you change the world, starting with the beverage aisle," Nalebuff says.

Having happy employees is important for success, Goldman added. "The better their lives are, the better work they will do."

Many employees have remained with the company since the beginning or close to it. As for the high percentage of employees who telecommute, Goldman says there is not much room to hide. "If someone is not keeping up, it becomes apparent quickly."

Although Goldman can work long hours, he balances that with exercise and eating healthfully. He takes time for his family, such as coaching his younger son's baseball team and going on vacations to places such as North Carolina's Outer Banks.

Around the office, Goldman tries not to micromanage, although he gets hands-on in certain areas such as branding. With his desk among employees, he knows there also is not room for him to hide, as Michael Scott from the television sitcom "The Office" often does. "People overhear what I'm saying," he says.

Goldman continually searches for ways to save resources. One is in using lighter-weight, redesigned bottles that use 22 percent less plastic than older models. Others have noticed, with the company named one of The Better World Shopping Guide's "Ten Best Companies on the Planet" and earning Greenopia's coveted 4-Leaf Rating. Honest Tea was the only mass-distributed, retail beverage to obtain four leaves this year, with Steaz getting three, Coca-Cola two and Pepsi and Gatorade one.

While the Bethesda Avenue office, which the company moved to in 2007, houses functions such as sales, marketing, accounting and even testing and quality control, the actual beverage manufacturing involves contracts with facilities spread across the country.

As for the future, Goldman wants to reach places Honest Tea hasn't been, including international markets that could include what may be the birthplace of tea. "We ship some to countries like Sweden, Singapore and Canada, but not on a significant scale," he says. "I'd love to market to China."

Now, that would be a feat. Honestly.