Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1540425
88 PCB007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2025 was still not making a consistent profit, and inves- tors were becoming uneasy (remember the very optimistic business plan?). Eventually, CSB decided to cut its losses and wanted to close the company in 1970, so my Dad, Chuck Williams, asked Harry if he had any other investors who might be interested in the business. Harry set a meeting with Jerry Klein, an entrepre- neur with quite a colorful background. Klein made his fortune during Prohibition, smuggling liquor from Michigan into the Milwaukee area in a cus- tom-built car with fake leather seats that opened to store the cases of liquor. At the end of Prohibition, he opened a company called Midland Plastics. After selling the business and retiring, Jerry was bored and looking for another investment opportunity. He was excited about the upcoming PCB business and bought Electro-Tek. With the equipment overhead now paid off, the business was profitable within six months, and Electro-Tek's reputation and customer base grew exponentially, including landing one of Wisconsin's earliest companies, Kohler, founded in 1873, just 25 years after Wisconsin became a state. Electro-Tek truly was a family business, with my younger brother Scott working inside sales and my mom Toni running the office (billing, payroll, HR, accounting, and occasionally logistics). She later founded her own company, ALW & Associates, to manage these functions as an outsourced service. Then there's me, kicking off my 49-year (and counting) career in the industry. My sister Becki (the youngest) was the only one smart enough to go straight to col- lege and stay out of the printed circuit board business. We had frequent employee celebrations, sum- mer picnics, and annual Christmas parties. Electro- Tek was the founding sponsor of our softball team (Figure 1), with our logo and a PCB on the jerseys. Many employees were part of the early roster, and the core of our legendary teams played together for over 40 years and never had a losing season. Dad outlasted us all, playing in his last game at age 67. I retired from baseball at age 55, following the effects of 10 surgeries, and Scott played another few years before hanging it up. The employees were like an extended family, spending time outside of work together and staying involved in each other's lives. Everyone genuinely enjoyed working together, and my fondness for this family-owned, small-business culture remains to this day. Integrating Electronics Assembly During this time, Rex Chain Belt asked Dad to con- sider building the electronics assembly associated with the PCBs we were providing. Despite not hav- ing electronics assembly experience, but seeing the market opportunity to vertically integrate, he agreed. Feeling stretched quite thin, Dad hired one of Louis Allis' colleagues to run this portion of the business, and took over an unused front of the sec- ond floor. Using Jerry's plastics expertise, they suc- cessfully built their first PCB and assembly enclo- sure. Word spread, and Generac and Kohler soon placed assembly orders. The day Dad called on a small company called Electro Measure (EM) in Neenah, Wisconsin, would inexplicably link two industry icons—Chuck Williams and Pete Strandwitz—for over 30 years. Pete was EM's general manager, which was formed to pro- vide electronics inventory management systems via the cash register for liquor dispensing in the restau- rant and bar industries. The owner of a prominent local four-star restaurant in Appleton, Wisconsin, had complained to Pete that his bartenders were losing a large part of his liquor sales by "pouring heavy" for tips and buying drinks for friends. He wanted Pete to set up and run a company to produce an automated system to dispense exact volumes of ingredients based on the drink ordered via the cash register. Leveraging EM's relationships with Cornelius T H E R I G H T A P P ROAC H Fun Fact #5: Years later, I had the rare opportunity to golf at two of the legendary Kohler courses and stay at the American Club. Sitting in the spa's hot tub and sporting a full beard, many confused employees asked if I needed anything while wondering why current owner Herb Kohler, Jr., was slumming it in the public spa.