Our company is 30 years old today

Today, our company celebrated its 30th anniversary with a nice, catered buffet, a few words from our two founders (they were married when they formed the company) and a few more words from the current company president. Both of our founders are retired from the company now (one still lives locally and the other one is living in Hawaii and had to join us via a video hook-up) and we rarely get to see them anymore. When the company first started it was just a husband and wife business. He designed and built the electronics and she answered the phones, did the books and dealt with all the government (local, state and federal) involved with running a company. They eventually hired someone to build the circuit boards who could do a better job of it and could build them faster. They worked in the barn behind their house and only needed a small portion of it for their "offices". The rest was for storage and where they kept their chickens.

Another of the jobs of our founder was to call up magazines and try to write reviews and informational articles about their products. He wanted to make the company sound like it was well established and capable of making a good, well-designed products. But he told us the story that one day, when he was on the phone, the chickens started to act up and got excited about something and were making a lot of noise. So, he kept trying to talk as much as he could so the editor on the other end of the phone wouldn't hear all the clucking and noise. He must have sounded rude not letting the editor say much. But it worked, they were able to get nice write-ups in the magazines about their products.

I didn't join until 1988 when the company had about ten people working for it. The chickens were gone when I started and the barn had been cleaned up (a little bit). Now we're a company of over 130 people and we're in our third building having outgrown the first two. I still learn something new every day.