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70 PCB007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2025 what follows is taken from his writings and tells the story of what led up to establishing one of the early and most enduring PCB companies in the industry. Chuck Williams, Innovator and Entrepreneur Dad discovered an early affinity for drafting in high school while designing a house in his drafting shop class. After graduation, instead of college, he chose to begin his career as a draftsman after get- ting an apprenticeship with telephone equipment manufacturer Automatic Electric, where his dad worked as a professional refrigeration engineer. Back then, a draftsman was today's equivalent of a design engineer. A few years after completing his apprenticeship, he left for Oak Industries, working on one of the first relay logic computers before moving to the Oster Corporation, inventor of the famous "Oster- izer" blender. They branched out into aviation in- strumentation with a new Precision Servo Motor T H E R I G H T A P P ROAC H Electro-Tek: A Williams Family Legacy, Part 1 by Steve W illiams, The Right Approach C onsulting There is no bronze bust in the lobby or portrait in the conference room of Electro-Tek's founder—my Dad, Charles "Chuck" Williams—so with the facil- ity closing last year after 56 years, I feel it is time to tell the story. Foundational Beginnings Chuck Williams founded Electro-Tek in 1968 in our basement, eventually moving into the second floor of an old 1913 building in downtown Milwaukee that is still standing (the first of three eventual facilities). Unless you knew our family or worked at the company with us, it's unlikely you know the ori- gins of the company due to the number of owner- ship changes over the years after we all left. First, there was an ESOP, then various presidents cycled through with majority ownership positions, and fi- nally, the company was sold to Sierra Circuits in 2022 and closed down on March 8, 2024. Sierra is a great company and I know them very well, but the facility simply no longer fit their strate- gic plans. When Electro-Tek was closed, I told Dad I wanted to tell the story of Electro-Tek and our fam- ily's impact on the industry. He surprised me by say- ing that, coincidentally, he had begun writing his life memoirs to leave to us kids and our families, and had just gotten to the Electro-Tek phase. Most of