Electronic Company

HIGH TECH ELECTRONICS COMPANY

While working with the CIA and NASA, the Naval Research Laboratory in Annapolis published a request for a large magnetic coil system for magnetic testing. It was going to be installed at a remote magnetic test site in Annapolis. Thinking about it, with myself having access to the world’s largest computer at NASA, I borrowed time on the computer and calculated a refined coil configuration. Using the computer, I designed a coil configuration that would produce one gamma of magnetic field uniformity over one cubic foot of volume. One gamma is ten to the minus five gauss or 0.00005 gauss. Yes, I can do this weird stuff. One gauss is the amount of magnetic field present on the surface of the Earth.

To show you how naive I was, here I was a NASA employee, but I responded to the Navy, sent in a bid, and won the Navy contract. Now I was in the magnetic coil business. I would be able to build coil systems that could produce a uniform magnetic field of 1 gamma over one cubic foot, so obviously the company should be named Gammaflux. The government awarded Gammaflux the contract. But there was a problem: I was a government employee with a government-funded contract. Based on the advice of the Goddard attorney, I resigned my Goddard commission at the age of 29 and started Gammaflux full-time with the Navy contract. I had \$3,000.00 in working capital and was in the garage.

The coil system was built and was tested in the backyard. Testing was on a wooden platform with aluminum (non-magnetic) nails and a plastic (non-magnetic) air building over the top. It was a magnificent coil system. It was a piece of cake simple.

Coil testing was done at night when there was little traffic since cars are moving magnetic fields and would disturb the tests. One time late at night during the testing, the sensor needles started bouncing around like the Tasmanian devil. The coil was going crazy. Looking up, there was a car (with its magnetic field) going by on the road about 1,000 feet away. The coil was interacting as it should.

PHOTO 1
Gammaflux (1 Gamma) Coil System
No Earth Magnetism in the Center of the Coils
Gammaflux delivered the coil system, and the Navy was satisfied. Soon after the coil system was delivered, I realized that the large magnetic coil business did not have a lot of repeat business. Well, at this point, I realized that I had made a stupid decision to leave NASA, but the decision was made, and I learned that you must be flexible in business.

The family was used to a generous GS-13 grade government salary, which would be about $150K/year today, and we were not accustomed to frugal living. We needed income. In looking around, I contacted a good friend, Jon Burleigh, who was a salesman in Detroit, for advice.

John said that Ford Motor needed better electronic controls for their molding machines. Upon hearing this, I said to myself, ‘Well, this has got to be the most boring thing that could be done.’ But since it was about the only business opportunity, I investigated it as a possible short-term income.

My Detroit friend had gone to Ford Motor and said he knew of a company in Washington, D.C., founded by a NASA rocket scientist that could solve their control problem. If you don’t realize it yet, I’m going to tell you that if you’re starting a new business, hire a salesman because he can say all kinds of wonderful stuff about you that you can’t say about yourself to a customer. Ford said they were interested in a meeting.

WHAT IS THE HOT SIDE OF A MOLD?

Like I say, you never know when a new opportunity will appear, but you need to be ready. My Detroit salesman said he had to meet with the Ford people to talk about the “hot side of the mold.” I had no idea what a molding machine was or what the hot side of a tool was. We met with the Ford engineers, and when I found out what they needed, I thought it was just a simple phase-angle Triac application. The Detroit salesman said, “Build one.”

A sample was built and shown to Ford. The engineers could not believe how tiny it was, nor were they convinced it would even work. The Variac looked like something you would see in a Frankenstein movie. Our Gammaflux controller was a cute, tiny, miniature spacecraft-inspired design by comparison. The Gammaflux controller was 25 times more powerful and 25 times smaller.

WORLD’S FIRST

The Ford engineers said that the old instruments were large and took up valuable factory floor space. They liked our smaller size. They said that they needed changes for the controller to make it work in their plant. It was to be used to heat the hot side of a tool on an injection molding machine. They had a long list of changes.

The prototype was a piece of cake to design and build, compared to building satellites. I built it and it was installed on a 500-ton injection machine producing instrument panels.

We brought spacecraft technology to the factory floor. We delivered our first panel at 5PM and started it running all night. The next morning, we got a call and were told that there was a fire on the injection machine with the prototype control panel and that the panel was surely to blame. However, after the firemen put out the fire and left the building, the control system was still working. We had incorporated satellite backup circuits that kept the instruments running through the fire. The circuits’ designs were based upon the spacecraft creed that “failure is not an option.

Upon seeing that the instruments continued to work through the fire, the engineering staff at Ford said that they wanted this Gammaflux stuff and needed to have the Ford inspection team make it standard at Ford Motor. The agent in Detroit said, “Hey, if you send your inspection team and all they see is a garage, you will never get this Gammaflux equipment.” So, the Detroit salesman said to Ford, “You take care of your standards approval team, and we will make sure Gammaflux deliver.

Shortly, Gammaflux became the approved hot runner controller standard for all injection machines at Ford Motor worldwide. Gammaflux started receiving purchase orders hand over fist and began producing hot runner controllers like McDonald’s makes hamburgers. Gammaflux was the only hot runner control system at Ford-Saline, the world’s largest plastic molding plant in the world, where the molding machines were as big as a house. From Ford-Saline, Gammaflux became standard at Cadillac, Buick, Fisher Body, and GM-Rochester. We were on a roll supplying the American automotive business.

The instrument systems were new technology and worked brilliantly well. Gammaflux supplied all the hot runner control systems to Ford Saline, the world’s largest plastic molding facility with 300 molding machines. Some of the machines were as big as a house.

Photo 3
Large Molding Machine with 20 Zone System
My 20 Zone System

MAIN STREAM

Gammaflux was a leading supplier of hot runner control systems to some of the largest injection molding machines in the world. This is one of 300 injection molding machines at Ford-Saline. Gammaflux equipped all 300 machines with hot runner controls. Some molding machines were as large as a house.

With a nationwide sales force, I had to travel extensively. I started Gammaflux with $3,000 in 1963 and built the business up to 50 people in 17 years. During the years I managed Gammaflux, we built approximately 21,000 temperature controllers. The business had a profit margin of 50 percent. I sold the business for $10 million. Gammaflux is still running today, employing 15 people, including one person that was there when I started the business and one of my first sales agencies still represents the company today, some 60 years later.