We downsized the office but not the people...

[OAITW r.2.0]

6. A partnership is definitely different than a corporate/company mentality.

Prior to 2000, I worked with the best manufacturing team I've ever been associated with in Pittsfield, ME. We were the best at new product development. We had on-site SMT/board-level testing with insourced Plastics Injection Molding (my contribution). We built micro based smoke sensors that became the absolute gold standard in the world smoke detection market. Where, there's as much value at not-smoke alarming as there is in announcing a real fire condition. Bar none, we could bring a well designed product from design-thru prototype- thru initial production. Once nailed, we sent the product to China - the only place to go for lowest cost and maximize shareholder value. I leaned a lot from my 18 years with this company. We had the best goddam manufacturing team, bar none, in the the USA. I still believe this. Sadly, UT. then GE bought us and they proceeded to gut the core that made this group so valuable. They GE MBA's never understood the value of what they had in this operating unit.