Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1111672
76 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2019 late to higher costs—certification through FCC, environmental certification, shock and vibra- tion test, drop test, thermal cycling, etc. We've done so many products that we know our reli- ability test mean time between failures. We incorporate all of those reliability tests into our process as an ODM, which is a chal- lenge. You cannot find a smaller company of our size in Silicon Valley that has all of this to offer. We are very unique in that aspect and have years of a very successful track record of delivering full turn-key projects. Johnson: And are you looking for new business areas? Where do you want to grow? Irfan: So far, we have grown from word of mouth, and we've had very stable customer relationships that have grown slowly over time. We are at a size now where we believe that to do justice to our business and for our team to grow, we want to slowly grow into a couple of other areas. We want to make investments into the defense industries because there is more of a focus on doing things locally as well as the medical space. We service customers both of these domains. We have vendors with most of the Tier 1 defense suppliers, but we have never focused on selling into any of this space. We have a very strong foundation and are looking to grow our sales and marketing team. We have the best employee retention in our industry. We have the engineering team that started with us in 2000, and over 95% of them are still with the company. Members of our administrative, materials, supply chain, and manufacturing supervisory staff teams have all been with the company 15+ years, which goes back to our principles of treating our employ- ees with respect. In 2001, when the market fell off the cliff, we lost money as a startup business. We had the option to lay off 30% of the workforce, but we didn't want to do it. We had a meeting with all of our team members, and said, "These are the two choices. Either we retain everybody, and we all take 30% pay cut, or we lay off 30% of the workforce." Everybody opted, "Let's keep everyone and take the 30% pay cut." They respected the fact that it was a collective deci- sion, and as the two founders, we went on zero salaries for the first four years. First, we raised everybody back to their normal salary, and then we started on a nominal salary in the fifth year before slowly building. That sense of loyalty has resonated with our team, and we're very proud of that. We take care of our team, and on the technical side, we Whizz Systems technician using X-ray inspection equipment.