Newsletter: February 2020
“Buy local”, is usually reserved for small businesses like family-owned hardware, or furniture stores; but it can also certainly apply to high-tech companies as well.
Bring It Home: A Good Family-Owned High-Tech PCB Fabricator
My PCB shop, Aurora Circuits, is a family-owned business. The company was founded as a printing company by my father many years ago. Then my father took it into the printed circuit board arena, naming it Kalmus and Associates, and a few years ago we moved to Aurora, Illinois, and re-named it Aurora Circuits, which we continue to operate to this day.
We are an American-owned company located in the heartland of America, proudly building only American products for American companies.
Over the last 80 years, our companies have contributed to many innovative American products and helped our customers succeed in their businesses as well.
With this history and this family heritage, I am proud to offer our family-owned business, Aurora Circuits as a strong and capable domestic source for your Printed Circuit needs. Right here in the center of America our company offers a number of innovative PCB solutions including Prototypes through Production, Quick Turn Around (QTA)and New Product Introduction (NPI), single and double-sided PCBs, Heavy Copper to 16OZ, Polymer Thick Film (PTF), Aluminum/Metal Clad Thermal Management and high technology MLBs.
One thing that is interesting about our company is that we still have an entire department of Punch Presses that we use every single day! That’s right, and people think that the Punch Press technology has left us! Talk about an onshoring opportunity for our good customers who need volume PCBs with sharp edges and sharper, truer corners.
So please, give us a call if you want to buy domestic, heck give us a call if you want to help preserve the PCB industry in the U.S., and especially give us a call if you want to support your local family-owned business.
The Beginnings of Aurora Circuits with Dr. Chris Kalmus, President.
Dan: You mentioned that your company, originally called Kalmus and Associates, has been around since 1938? Really? That’s pretty amazing. What is the story there?
Yes, actually my Dad started in the print business. He was always interested in that, even took some courses at the Art Institute in Chicago. So, he did eventually get into screen printing. But he wanted to do something different. He wasn’t interested in doing T-shirts and greeting cards and things like that. He wanted to do commercial work, what we call today business to business work. He started doing point of sales displays, like they have in stores.
Funny story. My Dad started out working for another company, and didn’t like it very much as he wanted to start his own company. One day he was in the car with one of his professors at the Art Institute who asked him why he didn’t go into business for himself. My dad said he did not have the money–so, the professor asked him how much money he would need to start his own business, and Dad told him fifty dollars. Right then and there, the professor pulled the car over, opened up his wallet, handed him fifty dollars and said, “Now go start your business!”
Dan: Fascinating!
But wait, that’s not the best part of the story. My Dad took the fifty dollars, used twenty five of it to get married and take a honeymoon with his wife at the Wisconsin Dells and then started his business!
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Look for the full interview at ICONNECT007