Re: Made in USA!!!


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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Sunday, October 03, 2010 at 11:52:32 :

In Reply to: Re: Made in USA!!! posted by Kevin in Ohio [67.150.83.119] on Sunday, October 03, 2010 at 09:45:37 :

I was in on probably one of the earliest steps of the whole China manufacturing thing back in 1984. I worked for John Fluke Company and somehow the marketeers had managed to work a deal with the red Chinese government to let Fluke sell voltmeters in China if we taught them how to make them and they made them in China. Since nobody else was doing business with red China, this was quite a coup even though there wasn't much money in it for Fluke. Management figured it was their foot in the door, and maybe it was.

What was interesting was that China sent 3 of their engineers over to learn all about how to make the 8840A meter (which was my project) and it was a HUGE honor for them to get to come to America. What was even more interesting was they sent a communist party chaperon with them to make sure they didn't fraternize with the enemy too much and presumably to make sure they came back to China. He was with them everywhere, but rarely said a thing. I still have their business cards -- all in Chinese, of course, and just slightly bigger than standard modern business cards.

At that time, Fluke was still making EVERYTHING in-house -- integrated circuits, thin and thick film resistor networks, printed circuit boards, winding their own transformers, and even had a robot assembly like to try to keep the hand-helds cost-competitive. The old man had just died, and Junior was trying to decide if he wanted to run the company or run for governor. I don't know what ever became of the China venture.



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