Longtime area employer AESCO Electronics Inc. says its purchase by a Texas company gives it the power to compete better and grow.
“This purchase gives us more resources,” AESCO President Roger Engle said of the company’s acquisition by AirBorn Inc.
“AirBorn is a company that is intending to grow, and at a rapid clip.”
AirBorn, an electronic components maker in Georgetown, Texas, north of Austin, said last week it had bought AESCO for an undisclosed price.
AESCO, formerly known as Akron Electronics Supply, is in the Akron-owned Massillon Road industrial park in Springfield Township and was owned by William R. Feth.
The company doesn’t make electronic components, Engle said.
Rather, it puts components together, making electronic assemblies — such as printed circuit boards for a variety of customers, including those making military electronics, semiconductor instruments and medical instruments.
Engle said the company’s larger local customers include GE Healthcare in Aurora, maker of MRI machines used for medical imaging.
Michael Fielding, AirBorn’s vice president for market development, said AirBorn was attracted to the Akron-area business because it “looked like a company that could really accelerate these [growth] plans of ours by several years.”
The purchase gives AirBorn a bigger foothold in some markets, including the medical industry, Fielding noted.
AESCO also brings to AirBorn design and manufacturing expertise, Engle said.
AESCO employs 150 locally and has a 150-employee facility in Taunton, Mass., south of Boston, in addition to its plant/headquarters complex in Springfield.
Airborn, with AESCO’s 300 employees, has about 1,400 workers. Annual revenue of the combined companies is about $160 million.
Employee-owned
AirBorn is an employee-owned company, and this means AESCO employees are now eligible to become shareholders. AirBorn was founded in 1958 as a manufacturer of electronic connectors for the military and aerospace markets.
Engle said AESCO is a relatively old Akron-area company that has evolved to remain viable.
The company began in the late 1940s as Akron Radio & TV Parts Co., supplying parts and equipment to the then-growing television repair market.
“If a repairman needed to replace a television tube, he’d go to AESCO,” Engle said.
In 1979, the company’s facilities — then on South Arlington Street in Akron — were destroyed in a fire. At the time, Engle said, AESCO “reinvented itself” as a distributor of electronic components to various original equipment manufacturers.
Changing direction
The company went through another transformation in the 1990s, focusing on assembly, such as cable and harness assembly, and printed circuit boards.
This was under William R. Feth, son of William Feth, who bought the business in the 1950s.
William R. Feth sold the business to AirBorn after being contacted by a broker last spring.
Feth serves on the board of the Akron Community Foundation and last year was the campaign chairman for the United Way of Summit County’s annual fundraising drive.
The company moved into a 58,000-square-foot building in the Springfield industrial park in 2002. The AESCO facility is across from the new Rochling Automotive plastic parts plant.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.