A former US Coast Guard Officer who served in the Marines, Jack Davis has led his life by Duty, Honor, Country. Jack started his small business in a garage fifty years ago and grew it into an American manufacturing success story. His company now employs 75 people – and he’s never outsourced a single job. He’s always shared profits with his workers and he’s made sure that his employees will take control of the company when he’s gone.
Jack will bring a lifetime of experience to the US Congress, fighting to create steady, well paid jobs here in Western New York. He’s not owned by the special interests, the corporations or the political parties – Jack Davis is his own man.
Here’s the Jack Davis story in Jack’s own words…
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My father had a great influence on my life. He attended several years at the University of Pittsburgh studying engineering, but the great depression came along and he had to go work and never graduated. I just followed in his steps and took a step further.
I remember helping him change the piston rings in a ’35 Ford when I was about 12. When I was 14, I bolted an old gasoline motor from a Maytag washing machine on the back of a wagon… my first go cart. I liked working with cars and building things.
My father was a Methods Engineer at Westinghouse and they moved our family from Pittsburgh to Buffalo after World War II.
I graduated from Amherst Central High School in 1951. I was not a great student but did fairly well in math and sciences. My grades were good enough to be accepted at University of Buffalo School of Engineering.
The Engineering School was only about seven years old and the Industrial Engineering graduation class was 12 or 16 (all male). I worked summers on the assembly line at Ford and at Westinghouse operating a radial drill press.
I started out in Mechanical Engineering and later switched to Industrial. This turned out to be a smart move for the subjects in the Industrial Engineering curriculum were a tremendous value in starting and running a small manufacturing business.
In the 1940 to 1960′s there was an Armed Service Requirement for males to serve 3 years. While still in high school I joined the Marine Corps Reserves. It did not work out well at first.
In the summer of 1950 I went to Quantico, Virginia as a Marine Corp Reservist for two weeks training. Then North Korea invaded South Korea and rumor had it we were not going home. Buffalo Marine Corp Reserve 105 Howitzer Battalion was activated. I was able to get deferment to finish high school. The Marines needed officers and I got another deferment and was able to get my engineering degree.
Two of the summers I attended six weeks of Marine Corp Officer Training at Paris Island then at Quantico. The time frame was 1951 to 1954. You may have heard stories about the tough training for enlisted Marines — it was tougher for officer training. They took a young boy and made him a man — tough, self confident and a leader.
As I see it now, the Marine Corp Training was a major factor in my successful career. Duty, Honor, Country are not just words to me – they are my life.
UB Engineering gave me building blocks of Chemistry, Physics, Materials Science, and Electrical Circuits. But most of all, it taught me how to solve problems using science and the technology that was available. I graduated from UB in 1955.
The Korean War fighting was over and the Marine Corp was downsizing. I was honorably discharged. However, I still had to fulfill my military service obligation.
I enrolled in the Officer Candidate School and was commissioned an Officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1958 my military service was completed and I went to work for GM at the Tonawanda Foundry as a Maintenance Engineer.
Three years later in 1961 I left GM and went to work for Carborundum as a Supervising Sales Engineer in charge of silicon carbide heating elements.
This is where I started my career in heating elements. I have been doing this for over 50 years and everyone else has retired. I suppose I am now the world’s expert on silicon carbide heating elements and their applications.
In 1964 an engineer Stan Matys and I left Carborundum and started our own company, called “I Squared R”. No one thought we would be successful.
I was 32, had a wife, four children and a mortgage.
I gave my wife $3,000 and told her: “It has to last six months. If I Squared R is not profitable in six months, I will get a real job”.
I Squared R was profitable in 6 months so I didn’t have to get a real job.
Our competitors were two large multinationals, both with sales over a billion dollars. Carborundum, the company we had just left, and Norton Company.
Carborundum was bought by British Petroleum. They sold the heating element plant to a Swedish Company Sanvik and they moved their equipment to Scotland. Norton was bought by a French company Saint Gobain and they sold the heating element division to Sandvik and their equipment ended up in Scotland too.
I Squared R is now the only manufacturer of silicon carbide heating elements in the United States. But we came from humble beginnings:
Stan and I each put $10,000 into I Squared R. Stan, a genius, an MIT engineer graduate, and a UB graduate with a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering, knew how to make heating elements.
I knew the customers and knew how to design furnaces and the applications.
He was a farm boy and we both could build things using Yankee ingenuity.
Our first purchases were a welder, a cutting torch, a brazing torch and a pile of steel delivered to my garage.
In two weeks we moved from my garage to 1914 Colvin Boulevard in Tonawanda to a building with approximately 2600 square feet.
Our first customer was Corning Glass Works. They are one of our major accounts today. We now sell the heating elements for their fiber optic furnaces and gorilla glass furnaces. Gorilla glass is the thin strong glass used in cell phones, computers, and flat screen TV’s.
After three years in Tonawanda our lease was up and we bought a 13,000 square foot plant at 203 St. Mary’s Street in Lancaster.
Fifteen years later we became land locked on St. Mary’s Street and we purchased a 100,000 square foot plant in Akron, where we are still based.
We now have 75 employees and sales in excess of 20 million dollars and ship to all industrialized nations of the world. Stan retired in 1998 and I bought his shares. I just turned 78 in March, have no plans to retire and would like to die at my desk.
I have 6 children, 13 grandchildren and three great grandchildren. One son works at I Squared R but does not want to be a manager. I have a daughter named Star who is beautiful and smart. She graduated as an honors student from Nichols, has a Civil Engineering degree from Duke and a masters degree in Architecture from Parson’s New School. I am very proud of this engineer.
Star and none of my grandchildren want to work at I Squared R.
I have put my shares of I Squared R in a trust and appointed nine members of my extended family as trustees. Upon my death the trustees will control I Squared R and the trust will own the company. The members of my extended family are my 75 employees.
The employees don’t have to worry about the plant being sold or moved or new management.
Congressmen Chris Lee’s resignation has opened up an opportunity for me to help the country I love.
I’m running for US Congress because we need to start creating jobs again in America. Our manufacturing economy has been in an economic decline for 30 years. Our national debt is 14 trillion dollars and growing.
We have over seventeen million men and women looking for work. We have lost fifty-three thousand manufacturing plants.
Our trade policies have caused the great recession.
The President and leaders of both political parties continue to push free trade agreements, now with Korea, Columbia and Panama.
The White House and Congress are controlled by the money from multinational corporations and by Walmart and other big box stores.
They will not control me. I am a Marine, a patriot, and a fighter, and have dedicated the rest my life to saving jobs, farms and industries. To win this battle I need to go to Washington as your Congressman.
I need your vote to help bring jobs back to America – and to restore our children’s future.
