Special to the Town Crier
The Jan. 13 opening of GET Manufacturing marked Mary Lou Zoglin's second ribbon cutting as mayor of Mountain View.
GET, a global player in the electronic manufacturing services industry, acquired the former Able Electronics facility at 960 Linda Vista Ave., in November 1998. The 38-year old private company relocated its headquarters to Mountain View from Hong Kong. Company chairman Shin (Samuel) Fang is a resident of Los Altos Hills.
Roger Nordby, GET's president and chief executive officer, said the firm plans to go public this year, providing one motivator for the relocation.
"All the top analysts in the industry are within five miles of here," he said. "The Hong Kong stock market doesn't put a lot of value on service companies."
Nordby, formerly vice chairman of Packard Bell NEC in Sacramento, joined GET in April 1998. While with Packard Bell, he established and operated one of the world's largest PC manufacturing facilities with more than 4,000 employees and revenues exceeding $5 billion. He has aggressive plans for GET Manufacturing as well.
The Mountain View headquarters currently employs 200 and operates a day shift and smaller second shift in 45,000 square feet of space.
"We plan to increase our second shift and double our $8.5 million annual U.S. payroll within the next couple of years," he said.
The firm recently opened a new office in North Carolina, and a new 65,000-square foot manufacturing facility in Tijuana, Mexico.
"Expansion into Europe and South America are part of our plans," Nordby said. GET named its European managing director late last year.
The company has three manufacturing facilities in China, and large engineering and materials handling operations in Hong Kong. It has 5,000 employees worldwide. Revenues for 1998 were $250 million and Nordby expects 1999 revenues of $300 million. The industry is estimated to grow 25 percent a year, he said. Its historical growth rate has been around 30 percent.
Founded in 1960 in Hong Kong as General Electronics, Ltd., the firm pioneered electronic contract manufacturing in southern China. GET's clients include Lucent Technologies, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric and Xerox in North American; Philips and Siemens in Europe; and Seiko and Sharp in Asia.
The new Mountain View facility has capabilities to bring bare circuit boards and electrical components to final assembly. GET customers will have the opportunity to build prototype and low- to medium-volume products and Mountain View. Through the company's standardized systems, processes and equipment, customers can transfer production to other GET facilities globally when volume warrants.
GET has made a major investment in state-of-the-art equipment and technology in Mountain View, said Michael Knaebel, director of quality. The firm uses a team concept, with individual team customers, as part of its quality management process, he said.
For more information, call 390-8900 or visit the Web at www.getm.com.