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Gamber-Johnson: Supporting technology to help save the world!

 

Rob:

Welcome to our podcast. All about the car, brought to you by Schierl Tire and Service. I'm your host, Rob Hoffman an auto service specialist with over 44 years of industry experience. On the ride with me today, our regular guest Bryan Call a 40 year veteran in the automotive industry. Hello Bryan.

Bryan:

Hey Rob. Great to be with you.

Rob:

Great to have you back. And Bill Schierl, a guy that's logged a lot of miles behind the wheel. Always has a lot of great questions. Welcome back, bill.

Bill:

Thanks Rob. Great day for a ride.

Rob:

Today, we have a special guest on the drive or maybe we're his guest Gautam Malik of Gamber-Johnson. Welcome Gautam.

Gautam:

Thank you. Excited to be part of this podcast

Rob:

And we are happy to, to be on site. We're actually at Gamber-Johnson in Stevens Point Wisconsin. So that's pretty exciting for all of us. We are at Gamber-Johnson's world headquarters. That's kind of a big picture thing. Gautam. If you could sum up Gamber-Johnson in just one sentence, I know I'm asking the impossible here, but what would you say?

Gautam:

We at Gamber-Johnson, we are supporting technology to help save the world. And again, two things about the calls that we have. It's a grandiose calls. So what we do makes a difference, whether it is a firefighter fighting a fire or a first responder responding to a 9 1 1 call, we are the company that connects the pieces together.

Bill:

I think that is saving the world. That's pretty it.

Rob:

That is saving the world. No, that really makes a lot of sense. So you're really playing a big part in safety in efficiency. So what applications exactly are your products designed for?

Gautam:

So our kind of products that we design are for the rugged mobility and what I mean by that, these are not average iPhones and tablets that you're gonna be using. So our product is designed for mission critical pieces of equipment. So when you call nine one one, the call goes to dispatch. The dispatch knows where their assets are. And when I talk about assets, it could be a police officer or asset could be an ambulance. An asset could be a fire truck, depending upon the nature of the emergency. And we at Gamber-Johnson, we make communication system to help first responders connect their radios. We are connected our rugged vehicle docking stations, are passing, the GPS signals passing the 4g 5g technology. So the first responder can respond back to dispatch and say, Hey, I'm gonna be there in five minutes.

Rob:

It is amazing.

Bill:

So, so from that standpoint, that equipment, what does that look like for, you know, like the average consumer or police officer on the ground? What are they carrying that is different than from the average consumer?

Gautam:

So for average kinda police officer, there are two modes of communication that happen. One is using the radio frequencies. So one thing that the world realized was when nine 11 happened, if you guys recall the cell phones, towers were getting jammed, people were not able to communicate to each other. And as that was happening, the only thing that worked during that time was radio frequency. And one thing that we realized in the last 20 years is the mode of communication that's gonna happen. You're always gonna have two sets of communication. One is gonna be using the radio frequency. The other is gonna be using the wireless signal that we call. And over the last 20 years, lot of changes have happened from a communication standpoint. You guys may have heard about first net. So what the government did after nine 11 was create a separate cellular network that would only be used by first responders. So you have a dedicated line of bandwidth that is gonna be used by police, fire, ambulance, or in case of natural disaster by the utility companies. So what we are supporting with our product is the type of product that are used in that industry are rugged. And you can take that tablet. You can take that radio out in the elements. So those products can be dropped from six feet. Those products are waterproof. So that is the kind of nature as if I'm line worker working outside after a huricain and it's draining my equipment needs to work from a communication standpoint to some of the statistics that we kind of publish in our industry. Our product is 99% reliable, right? When it comes to when you're gonna have electronic, the certain pieces that obviously are gonna fail. So the value population that we bring at Gamber-Johnson is rugged, reliable, and responsive and the ruggedness is coming in on designing the product. So when you put a Gamber equipment product, you know, that this product is gonna be good for five years of use and abuse by first responders, the amount of engineering that goes into this is amazing because we are doing a ton of destructive testing, similar to track testing. We are actually testing our product to a automotive spec to simulate what'll happen if a cop is in a accident at 35 miles an hour, right? So we don't want that tablet, radio, or laptop to become a projectile and hurt somebody. So the value population that we are bringing is, is not only seamless communication, but in case of a crash, you don't want that computer tablet to become projectile. So you wanna make sure that when you have equipment, when it's a matter of life and death, you'll be able to communicate to your first responder and get the right people at right side. And we play a huge role in that communication piece.

Rob:

Does your testing actually happen right here at the world headquarters?

Gautam:

Actually. Yeah. So the good thing about some of the relationship that we have at Gamber-Johnson, we work with the big manufacturers of tablets and laptops, rugged laptops. So we work with companies like Samsung, Dell, Panasonic, Gtag zebra, and with the relationship that we've had had with these companies, we know of their product plan. So we know what's coming down the pike in the next 18 months. And as we are working with these OEMs, we are testing our product. We are giving that feedback back. We are experts at putting those computers and tablets into vehicles, and we are giving that feedback back to those people that, Hey, this is how the design needs to be influenced to meet the needs of the first responders. So having that relationship helps us to design product that would meet, meet the specification in this market.

Rob:

Does the military use your products?

Gautam:

They do! So again, like communication is important from a military standpoint as well. And a few years back, we had a contract and we actually have fitted about 45,000 military vehicles as part of the contract. And we were shipping product directly to Iraq. So we were not the prime, but we are supporting subcontractor who was prime on the contract. And we were shipping our mounts and cradles directly to Iraq during Desert Storm.

Rob:

Wow. That's pretty prestigious really.

Gautam:

Absolutely.

Rob:

It's great to be a part of such a big cause for sure.

Bill:

So then On those devices, you know, like if I'm in a store as a, as a general consumer, are any of your products available to the consumer market or I'm not gonna see Gamber-Johnson's cell phone rugged cover at Radio Shack.

Gautam:

Yeah. So for most of what we do is B2B transaction for a niche rugged mobility market. So you're not gonna find because the laptops and tablets that the list price on these are $4,000, $3,000. So these are.

Bill:

That's good information point

Gautam:

And same thing. Like you're talking about mission, critical things, things that don't break, you're gonna pay a premium for those, we do make product, which is for consumers, but again, not a huge portion of what we do. Most of what we do is for the rugged mobility business.

Rob:

So speaking of rugged mobility, I would imagine that there is a part of the business out there in the way of recreational vehicles. I think I saw that on your website, that you had some products for ATVs, UTV's, boating, is that a small part of your business.

Gautam:

It's a small part of the business, but it's also one of the kind of growing part of the business. We good at mounting equipment. And as we've looked at diversifying and getting into different revenue streams for the market, that is one area that we've identified. And so the cool things that we are doing in that market is we are coming up with new camo that are gonna be on our mounts. So if I'm a hunter, I'm gonna have the matching camo that goes with my boat when I'm going duck hunting. So kind of a exciting, interesting market for us, but when it comes to mounting ATVs or even boats, we can do fish finders, we can Mount your GPS, any equipment that you're gonna need on that ATV. We are gonna be your partner to mount that equipment

Rob:

ATV business has really become big. You just see 'em all over. Anytime you're driving rurally, they're on the roads these days. So, I mean, it's really going all different directions, which puts you in the driver's seat for sure.

Gautam:

Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's not limited to ATVs like the world of rugged mobility. Like if you look at inside a cab of a ag equipment, the mode of tablets that you see that are mounted, it's about being productive. So again, if I'm a say a company like AT&T a company like Sears, right? You want your technicians to be generating revenue for you. And the use case is get rid of the paper process, right? So what you wanna do is if I'm a technician, who's gonna be working on equipment. When I log in at eight o'clock, I go into my truck, I log in the computer tells me that the next call is the gonna be at Bill's house. And his machine is not working. And it'll tell me that the customer complained that there is a noisy motor, maybe the bearing is gonna be gone and you have a couple of bearings in your work truck. So I go in, I take care of that customer call. And then by 10 o'clock, I am done generating revenue for the company. And then it tells me that, okay, the next call is gonna be at Rob's house and I'm gonna take care of a refrigerator. So again, what you're trying to do is you're trying to get your mobile worker more productive, get all the information on their finger tips. So if I'm a utility company, I'm not gonna look at your meter, I'm gonna basically drive around your neighborhood. My rugged laptop or tablet is gonna wirelessly communicate to your meter and automatically you're gonna see a bill pop up that you'll end up paying every month. So again, it's getting that information at your fingertips to make your mobile worker more productive is what we are trying to do.

Rob:

Product ideas. Just seem to be endless with this conversation. I think in five years, you're gonna need a bigger building. It's kinda like jaws needing a bigger boat.

Bill:

Yes.

Rob:

You know, it's just it's gonna get to the point where it's just endless for you guys, for sure.

Bryan:

So what's going through my head is you get this contract with the military, you gotta design the equipment for the humvee. So how do you go about that? Do you actually bring a humvee in and start measuring or,

Gautam:

Yeah, so pretty much like if I don't wanna get into details, some of those kind of things are protected by NDA, but I'm gonna kind of walk you through on a typical vehicle application on what happens. We are part of a upfitter group. So when it comes to the Ford Chryslers of the world, we've got an NDA with them. We are part of their select group of people that do up fitting for them. So similar to what happens on the computer side, we have great information coming in from the vehicle manufacturers or on what's coming down. So giving you example about Ford F150, they made a big buzz about creating all aluminum chassis. We knew about that project one and a half year before it became public knowledge. So we've got a team of engineers, mechanical engineers that would travel to Detroit that happens every quarter and sometimes it's like twice a quarter. And what happens is when we are going there, we do get access to the CAD. But a lot of times what CAD shows you compared to reality is two different things. So our engineers actually go down to Detroit and we get access to these prototype vehicles. And we are given like four kind of hours with that vehicle. We've been given the CAD beforehand. So when we go to these measuring sessions, we already have prototypes in hand that we are installing and we never hit a home run the first time. But again, having access to those vehicles, having access to the CAD data before the launch is what kind of differentiates us from competition. Because for us, when we are doing a launch, when a computer OEM launches a computer, we wanna make sure our accessories available with that. When a vehicle OEM launches a new vehicle, we wanna make sure that we've already designed the brackets that would attach to the vehicle for our equipment to become compatible with their vehicle. So again, those relationships is what kind of helps us and having a team of 20 mechanical engineers that we have access to. And we even have like new technology that we can take and we can scan a vehicle and it can generate that CAD for us. So in some cases, when we are working on special military vehicles, you don't get the CAD because some of these vehicles would have an engine, half of armor underneath to prevent it from ID blast. And the whole thing gets kind of refitted. And we've got access to a scanner that we can put on a tripod and we can scan that vehicle. And that becomes our CAD as a starting point for us to do that. And in some cases, we are going to these military bases to get those measurements, coming back to our factory, designing our product. And then again, designing is an itterative process. You come up with a model, then you come up with a prototype, you try upfiting and then you kind of refine your design from there.

Bryan:

That's fascinating.

Rob:

That is fascinating.

Bill:

How long does that normally take on a vehicle situation? I mean, you said you knew about something a year and a half ahead. Is that timeline usually set? Do you always are looking three quarters, four quarters in advance that you're in that conversation?

Gautam:

Yeah, typically we are always, yeah. So we follow a process called sales and operations planning here at Gamber-Johnson. And unlike a traditional company, we are not constrained by the yearly budgets. Like everybody has a yearly budget. So what we do is every month, we look at our budget four to 18 months out because that is the visibility that we have from computer OEM. That is the visibility that we have from the vehicle OEMs on what is coming down the pike. And we can literally plan our expenses around that because we know how many new products we are gonna be launching. And the good thing about the kind of technology segment that we play in there is always change. There is always disruption and the mindset that we have as a company, is disruption is good. And the two ways of looking at disruption, one would be, people are gonna get scared. They may go out of business. The culture that we have at Gamber-Johnson is any disruption as market is good. What do we gotta do to use our core competency, to leverage that and see what we can do to take that to the next level. And that's what kind of differentiates us from others.

Bill:

So when you are happen to be, when somebody happens to be walking by a police vehicle and look inside what percentage of all that technology is necessarily the odds of it being Gamber-Johnson mounting? Like, I mean, you just look in a vehicle today. It's like, okay, this is like, like a spaceship, practically

Gautam:

Significant portion of the technology that's mounted. So again, like we don't make the electronics, but we mount the electronics into the vehicles. So the first thing that you see in the police car, if you look at the police car is gonna be a push bumper, Gamber-Johnson makes the push bumper.

Bill:

Now what is a push bumper?

Rob:

I didn't know that.

Gautam:

Yeah. You, again, like he was talking about a lot of times, these cops you see on those kind of videos, they do a pit maneuver and they basically push a car. So what we have is our push bumper for the police segment comes and kind of two material types. One is aluminum and one steel. It also protects you in case you run into a deer, the first thing that's gonna hit is gonna be the push bumper, which is made out of steel or aluminum and small kind of maneuvers, like pushing a car. You could do it without impacting your car or your airbag being deployed using our push bumper. So that's the first piece of technology. The second thing that.

Bill:

I think there's alot of people who would buy that push bumper.

Rob:

There's a lot of people that should have one yes.

Gautam:

The second piece of equipment that you see in a police car is you're gonna have those cameras that are mounted and you're gonna have those scanners for the radar detector. So again, we make equipment to Mount those cameras into the vehicle in the middle between the driver and the passenger seat is central console made out of sheet metal. And that's where all the radios go in on top of that, you're gonna find a motion attachment. So what we are doing is in a vehicle, you can have officers of every size and you wanna make sure that when they're using a laptop or tablet, there is ergonomics. You can move, you have the tilt and the swivel. So we would have some sort of motion attachment go on top of the central console. And then on top of that would be our docking station that would hold the computer. And in addition to holding that computer, you're gonna pass all the signals. So you're gonna pass GPS, you're gonna pass 5g. You're gonna have different types of data. That's gonna be transmitted. You're gonna be connecting your printer in case you ever get pulled by a car, the kinda gives you a ticket you're gonna do that.

Rob:

I have never seen this equipment, but I, I think I have

Gautam:

And then behind the police officer, you're gonna find the partition. So that's the partition between kind of the driver passenger seat and the back.

Rob:

And you manufacture that as well.

Bill:

What's the weight of all of that equipment. Is it substantial enough to change at times the load bearing on the vehicle?

Gautam:

It does. Like, so again, it doesn't change the load bearing, but again, it kind of is a great segue into kind of the next aspect of the next evolution of Gamber-Johnson. So Gamber-Johnson was founded in 1950 for making wooden furniture. We are putting.

Rob:

Furniture?

Gautam:

Furniture. That's how kind of the company started.

Rob:

Home furniture.

Gautam:

Yeah, we were,

Rob:

That's crazy.

Gautam:

When we are done, I'll give you a tour, kinda show you some of the old pieces of equipment. And we would put we would make these stereo cabinets. We would put speakers and two cabinets. And in early seventies, one of the truck drivers came to us and said, Hey, I would need to Mount the CB radio. And that's how the company kind of pivoted. And we started making a line of kinda mounts for CB radios. And I wish we would've trademarked the name docking stations. Then we called it a slide Mount. And what you could do is you could kind of take a CB radio and you would slide it into our Mount. It would lock it. And as the first request was just the holder, the second request was, Hey your mount is great. I can secure my radio, but what do we gotta do to keep it charged? And you're talking 17th, the battery life was, we still complain about battery life. So I can't even imagine what it was in seventies, right? So we came up with a few power pins that started to kinda charge your CB radio. And the next evolution that happened is anytime you put the radio into a metal cab, the signal trend goes down. So the next request that came in was if I was gonna use the external antenna, I can, can that signal be passed using our mount? And we came up with a patented line in 1978, call slide mounts, but I wish we could have called that like docking station, because everybody thinks about that as a docking station now. So to kind of answer Bill's question weight is obviously gonna be an important consideration. As we move forward, we worked with a few clients that delivered groceries. There was a big kind of customer of ours in UK. And for them, it was every thing was about weight. And the reason why it was these guys were they, they had a warehouse, a big, massive warehouse with huge amount of automation, and they were delivering groceries in London. So in London, you don't move a whole lot, but the traffic is always slow in and around London. So what they did was when I looked at their and they were using one of the global pat platforms, then they had a sprinter van and, in that sprinter van, the only thing they had was a seat for the driver. There was no seat for passenger. And I'm like, Hey, this kind of looks weird. And they're like, Hey, it's all about how much cargo we can have. And for them, every pound that they can get off, they can add that into groceries and you can have a different order. And these guys had that as a science, because one thing I realized was these guys were not filling up their cars complete. So when a sprinter was going out, it was strategically filling up to like half from a gas standpoint, because then you've got more cargo and more weight. And I would say like the European union is, I would say 10 to 15 years ahead of us when it comes to green. So they already have a regulation that starting 2030, you're not gonna have car that would have IC engine. So you gotta think about hybrids. You're gonna talk about electric vehicles that go in, but that same paradigm shift is gonna come in US as well, too. And, and to answer your question, a few weeks back, we were contacted by Madison PD and they have a few Teslas.

Rob:

Oh.

Bill:

Wow.

Rob:

I see

Gautam:

We are designing product. Then again, like when it comes to a electric vehicle, everything is gonna be, the distance is gonna be based on the payload that you're gonna have. So the next kinda evolution that's gonna happen with Gamber-Johnson are gonna be up until now. We used aluminum. We used steel. All of these are great products, but again, they weigh a lot. So as we design the future technology of what goes into EV we have to look at different manufacturing methods. We have to look at product that is made out of composites, plastics that has the strength, but also is lightweight because every pound, every couple of pounds that we can save is going to help those vehicles go much further.

Rob:

Makes you wonder when that call from NASA is gonna be coming. You're gonna be in space pretty soon from the way it sounds. And it's just a lot of really proud to have you be from Steven's Point here, the same town that we do business in it's just really, really a cool thing.

Rob:

Speaking of big picture. I mean, when was the point in time when Gamber-Johnson really was considered global cuz your humble beginnings furniture home furniture right here in Steven's point, when was that point where y'all looked at each other and said, Hey, we're global.

Gautam:

So kind of interesting story. The reason why we got into exports, the reason why we started looking at world was during the 2008 recession. So the 2008 recession comes in like every company, our sales kind of go down and for us, we did not see the dip right away because the spending in public safety is based on what the collections were last year. So for us, we did not see it right away in 2008, by the time we saw it, it was like 2009 and 10 is when we saw that decline coming in because the tax collection were lower. So at that time we are looking at what are the things that we can do out of the box to help us take the products that we have overseas. And what we did was at Gamber-Johnson, we worked with WMEP, which is Wisconsin manufacturing, extension partnership. And they have a great program called export type and the senior leadership Bryan Wagner, who's my partner CEO, Bryan and I enrolled into that export tech program, which was like a three month program. And as part of the program, we came up with a strategic kind of approach and that became one of our pillars for us to grow. So we decided to conquer the world, but not at once, but three countries at a time. So that program basically told, taught us how to be strategic about exporting, how to be a proactive export errather than reactive exporter. Up until that point. If we got a order, we fulfilled the order, but again, the customer had to pay us in advance when they gave us the order and we are more than happy. So all the risk was taken by the customer and after we kind of graduated outta the program, we had a playbook, we knew what our revenue is gonna be three years after exporting our product. One thing that we realized as we started looking at world as our market was things were gonna be different. I grew up in India driving on the wrong side of the road. Right hand, right?

Bill:

It's all relative.

Rob:

And now you're saying it's the wrong side of the road.

Gautam:

The reality is about 25% of the world population drives on the wrong side of the road. So as we were coming up with certain things like right hand drive, left hand drive different makes and models in north America, the cars were much bigger when we started exporting the number one selling police car was crown Victoria. You could put, put a 13 inch laptop into that. So as a company, we had to decide that if you're gonna play in that overseas market for the overseas market, small was big. So the smaller, the tablet size, and, and there were times when the likes of Panasonic were not even bringing that tablet to north America because the form factor was too small, but that was a great product for the European market. So as a company, we had to decide that, okay, if you're gonna play in that market, we're gonna invest into resources and we are gonna have a product portfolio. That's only gonna be for export. It's not gonna be for north America. The other kind of change or different that I seen the market was the north american market was driven more by windows. So windows was the golden kind of everything was on windows. And the overseas market Android with that adoption of tablet, Android was nobody wanted to pay a premium for the windows. They wanted open source. They wanted their own app developers to write their program. Because a lot of times what they were doing was they were getting rid of paper, pen, and paper process. They were automating processes on home delivery. They were automating process on utility outages. When you go to a customer, you take care of issue, come back and use that tablet to do that. And in 2012 is when we kind strategically kinda pivoted and said, we are gonna look at, and that has kind of changed in the way we design a product. Now, when we are designing a product for us, it's important is the cord gonna come from right hand side or left hand side? Because depending upon how the product is gonna be used, it's gonna bump into somebody's knees, right? So is there a way that we can have a product that's gonna work for both right hand drive, left hand drive, or what we do today is depending upon the drive, the cables are getting out on one side for north American products. And then for like Singapore, Australia, the product is being configured and the cables are coming out from the other side. The other thing that we had to do was from regulatory compliance in US, when we are selling our product, the only mark that we need is FCC. When you're selling in Europe, you need CE mark. But when we are selling our product in South Korea, we need a KCC mark. When we are selling our product in Saudi Arabia, you need the SASO mark. When we are selling our product in Australia, you need the C-tech mark. Now, when we were kind of starting in 2012, we had to gain all that knowledge. So what we are doing today is we work with our computer manufacturers and we say, okay, what are the countries that you guys are planning on launching this product? We know what regulatory compliance is gonna be needed. And when we are launching the product, we know that we are good to go with golden 44 countries, day one, when we launch the product, if we need to sell into Russia and we need to go certification, we know how to get that. But at this point, if there is no business case, until the opportunity comes in, we are not gonna do that. The other thing that we had to do was because the product was smaller. We did not have a product line and kind of went in, in our M and A acquisition. We acquired a company called Zircona outta Sweden, and they had the right portfolio with the right patent on the ball and socket joint, because we saw that market pivoting in that direction. So smaller form factor, more of a universal type of mount that could be used across a variety of product line. And that's the product actually that we are pivoting and taking into the ATV and the boat side of the business. So kind of exporting started in 2012 little long answer, but again, a very strategic approach in exporting fast forward to 2021, we are shipping product to 48 countries consistently. We've got outside US and Canada, five sales manager. So we've got a sales manager that does Latin America based out of Mexico city. Our international sales director is based out of UK and we've got another sales manager out of Europe and Poland. We've got another sales manager based out of Bangalore in India that does Asia Pacific. And then for New Zealand and Australia, we've got another sales manager who's based out of Sydney.

Rob:

And these are all a part of Gamber-Johnson?

Gautam:

These are all part of Gamber-Johnson, and these are people selling our product. So don't matter. Like the good thing is having a global sales team, even when the factory is shut, those orders keep coming in because it's like, when we are done, it's eight o'clock in Australia and they start, they go to work.

Rob:

24-7.

Bill:

And I think that just in talking on that global level, that all about the car that we think of as Westerners, you think of one image of a vehicle, and what you've just brought to light is that vehicles are not the same throughout the world in that transportation. Isn't the same. And just down to the basic, which side of the road you drive on is only a starting point of the differences between transportation.

Gautam:

Absolutely.

Rob:

I never would've thought of that angle. I just figured you hold a mirror up and you can reproduce that part in an opposite.

Bill:

Right. Then we get into connectivity when we don't even go there. I'm sure it's all different in every different country.

Rob:

That's definitely big picture stuff, for sure. As with every all about the car podcast, we always break away and take a road trip, Wisconsin, and visit a very interesting place somewhere in the great state of Wisconsin today, we are going to the EAA grounds or museum over in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. So that's on the Eastern side of the state and I'm sure many of you have heard of the EAA show, but the museum, it can actually go there all year long, any time of the year, it's all indoors. Most of it's indoors. You can cross across the field to some of the vintage hangers and see some of the planes there, weather permitting, but the EAA museum is just absolutely amazing. I think there's over 200 different aircraft on display under the roof.

Bill:

Let's start with, first of all, EAA experimental aircraft association, that's correct?

Rob:

That's it.

Bryan:

That's great.

Bill:

Yeah. We always refer to it as EAA. And does anybody really know what that was? So that's a good point. What you gonna see?

Rob:

Beautiful facility. And like I said, most of us know about the big fly in once a year. And that typically happens in towards the end of July and just amazing, but let's just focus in on the museum portion of the EEA. There's a lot of featured aircraft that they have. There's just four that comes to mind as we sit here today. And that is one of them's a north American Mustang. Yes. The Mustang does fly. It is an airplane. It's a lot of vintage,uinformation on that airplane. That's in the museum. Also, they have a spirit of St. Louis replica. And from what I've heard, there's actually two of them when I was there years ago, I think there was only one, but they have a couple of those and Bugatti. Now, when I say Bugatti, that sounds like a car to me.

Bill:

Yes.

Rob:

But they were heavy into,uaircraft engines back in the day as well. And that was back in 1938 that they actually fit this aircraft with an engine and many other ones there on display. There's a lot of interactive displays. UBryan, have you been there?

Bryan:

Yeah, I went over there one time, it's a fascinating place to go visit.

Rob:

You could easily spend two to three hours.

Bryan:

Oh goodness.

Rob:

You could probably spend a day.

Bryan:

More than that.

Rob:

Yeah. If you decided to read all of the information on these things, there's quite a few, like I said, interactive parts of the museum, some of those things they've backed off just a little bit with the COVID situation that we're in right now and have been for a while, but still definitely the best place to go if you're into aircraft or just love history in general.

Bill:

And what are the hours of operation?

Rob:

They're open Monday through Sunday, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. So that gives you plenty of time. I know there's hotels and motels in that area. If you decided to make a weekend of it.

Bill:

I do have to admit there happens to be an outlet shopping mall right across the street.

Bryan:

Right across the street.

Rob:

There is pretty popular too.

Bill:

So if you're not really into the museum aspect. You could always leave somebody in the outlet malls.

Rob:

Absolutely. And the children five and under are free, just gotta kind of keep a watch on 'em cause they tend to run and veer off to the side. For sure. There's a family rate like for a family for 31 bucks to get in group rates are available really a popular place to take groups or class groups, church groups, for sure. We'll make sure you put the EAA museum into your plans for the future. It's a great place in our great state of Wisconsin.

Rob:

Back to Gamber-Johnson in Stevens. And we have Gautam Malik here and learning a lot about their business. We're at their world headquarters. Let's talk a little bit about the new world headquarter building that we're sitting in right here. It's just absolutely beautiful. I've been by this building many times over the years as it is actually located along part of our trail system called the green circle here in Stevens point Wisconsin. But the transformation that I've seen in the last six to eight months is just amazing. Absolutely beautiful. First time I we've been inside the building and I can tell a lot of work has gone into it. And you just recently had an open house celebration, I believe in September of this year.

Gautam:

That is correct.

Rob:

How did that go?

Gautam:

Awesome like. We had about 89% employee participation, 450 kinda family, friends and community members were part of the open house celebration. Perfect weather had a live band playing that Spicy Tie.

Rob:

Oh nice. So this was actually not just inside, but outside in the parking lot as well. You said nice weather.

Gautam:

Yeah.

Bill:

So this building that you're in was built by Jeorns Manufacturing back originally correct?

Gautam:

Yeah. So the building was started in 1972. And when we looked at the building, the building has been vacant. Jeorns kind of exited out of the Gamber-Johnson market in 2012. And the building was vacant since then, instead of kinda building a new building, we decided why not kind of renovate the existing building, looked at all the possibilities of what could happen if you have a vision. And is I given you Bill you a tour of the building, you would've said, what are you thinking? A year back. So it took about six months for us to do the design in the construction phase took any year because of COVID things were moving a little slow. The lead times were longer, but one of the most kind of exciting things about this building that even every day when I come to work and if good gives me goose bumps as the possibilities of kind of innovation, collaboration of teamwork, when everybody kinda works together, we've got just on the office site, 38,000 square feet of office space with no individual office in it. So what we have at Gamber-Johnson, unlike a traditional company that has what I call silos. So you have engineering department, you're purchasing department, you have manufacturing engineering department. What we do unique at Gamber-Johnson is we have co-located teams that are given the boundaries to work in and they are managing the portfolio from creative to grave. And what I mean by that is they are responsible for bringing a new product to market, but they're also responsible for when they're at the end of life on that product, make sure that we don't have a huge inventory exposure when that product goes obsolete. So it's important for us that collaboration and teamwork that happens in the four walls, we push the envelope of innovation by having teams that work together and collaborate on projects.

Rob:

I can't see how it could happen any other way with the diversity of your products and the growth that you experience. So how many square foot or feet is this building total?

Gautam:

So the world headquarters in Steven's point is 133,000 square feet.

Rob:

Oh my gosh. And so what's under the roof? I mean, you mentioned some of the different departments and more of the administrative part of it, but research and development?

Gautam:

Yeah, absolutely. That is bread butter of what we do. We've got about 22 design engineers, manufacturing engineers, kind of doing innovation on a daily basis. We've got the core team that does buying, we've got the core team that does product marketing, how the product is gonna be used, what needs to be conveyed from a marketing standpoint to the world, we've got a sales team, but most of the sales team is outside selling our product. But we do have inside sales, the team of six inside sales team that we have, we've got on the manufacturing side a team that does assembly. So we are kind of assembling the product. We are testing the product. We are picking, packing, shipping the product entire warehousing is happening here. In addition to that, we've got IT department of six because it's not only what we have here. We do have satellite offices. So we do have a office in Madison that has 11 people. We have a satellite office in Bria, Southern California that has 14 associates. We own a company in Canada, our subsidary called PMT. We've got 44 Canadian employees that are part of the Johnson team. And we also run a three warehouse out of Amsterdam to service our European customers.

Bill:

So how do you handle the installation of your products? Is that Gamber people doing the installation or do you provide... Here's the product with some instructions?

Gautam:

So Bill, like one thing you're gonna realize as you become a global company, the rules and regulation in every country are different. So strategically the product that we've done is we do the innovation on designing the product and making sure that it'll meet the automotive requirements, that'll meet the computer OEM requirements. But when it comes to installation, we don't do the install. And that kinda works out to our advantage because the business model that we have is we provide the hardware and there are multiple pieces of technology that needs to go on these cars. When you're talking about police carss the upfitter is working on not only our equipment, but also the radios. Also the lights and sirens that go on that also on the decal of Stevens Point, PD has their own decals. All of those pieces have to come together. So we give the instructions on how the product needs to be installed, but we work with a great install base all over the world. And these people are experts in installing that technology into vehicles. So similar to the kind of relationship that you have with Ford. Ford does not do your service, right. They're working with Schierl Tires when somebody needs the tires. So again, that's the business model that we have that we give the training. And we work with people that do that for a living 24-7. And we are one piece of the cog that helps them deploy that technology into the vehicles.

Rob:

So the installers need to become certified.

Gautam:

That is correct.

Rob:

Gamber-Johnson, Certified.

Gautam:

GA Johnson certified.

Rob:

So if A local police department decided to bring all their, their squad cars, their new line over here, you probably would not install it.

Gautam:

We do a lot as a, in the community for helping out our police departments, but we would typically have them go to one of our installers to get the product installed. But there are times when, like when we are launching a new product, a new vehicle comes in and we've got a new product that we would like to get feedback from. We work with Stevens Point PD, we work with Plower PD, so that at the time we would do the installation in those vehicles. And as part of doing that installation, what we are trying to get is we are trying to get raw feedback from people that are using the equipment, which is gonna be the police officer, right? When you have a new product that needs to go into a new car, you wanna get that firsthand feedback. So that is the time when we work with local PDs, do the installation, but it's more on R and D side of things as part of doing that. And there are times when COVID happened and the Portage county wanted to have upfit multiple vehicles that could be used let's ambulances. Not only did we donate the product, we also installed the product into vehicles. So in a police car, you've got a partition that is between the cop and the person that's gonna be in the back of. And a lot of times you've got unruly passengers in the back trying to kick you and having a partition made out of steel. Aluminum, definitely.

Rob:

That's an important piece.

Bill:

Yes.

Gautam:

And, and that's part of the rugged portfolio that we have at Gamber-Johnson. And then in the back of the vehicle is the secured storage solutions. So if I'm a police officer and I have a weapon that I need to secure, I need a trunk solution that can be locked in such a way that it can be open. And then lot of technology is now being mounted in the back of the vehicle. A lot of times they're gonna have different kind of electronics that go in. They would have a spare battery because of the mode of equipment that goes in. And that spare battery is being mounted in the trunk of the vehicle. And that's where kind of Gamber-Johnson puts all solutions together as part of the complete package.

Rob:

So Gamber-Johnson actually designs and produces or manufactures those strong boxes in the back.

Gautam:

Yes, we do. Yes, we do it.

Bill:

So kinda front of the vehicle, all the way to the rear bumper.

Rob:

Bumper to bumper.

Bill:

Think you do anything with the back bumper?

Gautam:

Not yet.

Bill:

You can't say bumper to bumper just yet.

Rob:

Not quite.

Bill:

Close.

Rob:

Bumper to, almost to the bumper.

Bill:

Yeah.

Rob:

There we go.

Bryan:

Perfect.

Rob:

Well, we've learned a lot today about a local Stevens point company. That's gone global. Thank you to our host, Gautam Malik from Gamber-Johnson for spending valuable time and hosting our onsite all about the car podcast session. Well, all the right pieces are in place for a perfect storm. You might say, and the future belongs to Gamber-Johnson. So we hope to have you ride along next time on all about the car to listen to previous episodes, find additional resources or to simply send us a message head to all about the car podcast.com. We'll see you next time.