Business

In my half-century in business, I have worked for big companies like General Motors and Siemens, and small companies with forgotten names. I have worked for progressive companies like Intel and backward companies like Timex. I have worked for semiconductor companies, manufacturing companies, and companies that never should have become companies in the first place. I have founded my own companies, managed other people’s companies, financed companies, and liquidated companies. I have developed consumer products, industrial products, medical electronic products, military wartime products, products used in farm fields, and products to go into space.

The anecdotes and reembraces in this section reflect my experience from my early years of designing car radios at General Motors during its hay-day, through a long career in the semiconductor industry, and finally to integrating electronics with optical components to reduce the use of herbicide in agriculture. During the same, more than a half-century of calling Patchen, California, my home, I also built a unique and successful retail and wholesale business in the Christmas tree industry.

The table that follows will gradually over time, become populated to represent a chronology of what happened – and when. Understanding that it has no particular value to anyone else, it’s a way to help me remember – both the good and the not-so-good.

The stories are real, and the opinions are 100% my own, on the advice of my friend Yap Ping Hui in Penang, Malaysia, who often said, “don’t bring me borrowed opinions – speak with data or keep quiet”.

By: Jim
Written: 2021
Published: March 2021
Revised: March 16, 2023
Revised: