Lighting the Way

A General Electric salesman walked out of the tiny, plain reception room of the unimpressive little plant in Alhambra, Calif. of Lights Incorporated, which manufactures lighting equipment for airports and airplanes. He turned to Managing Director Harry Swift Kimball, told him: "If anyone had ever told me that I'd walk out of the front door of that dump of yours with a million-dollar order in my hand I'd have figured he was crazy."

A year or so ago he would have been. But now General Electric with its million-dollar order for cable is only one of about 200 subcontractors working for the amazing firm of Lights, Inc. which has gone & done one of the most vital jobs in the war effort: to make subcontracting really work and really pay.

Four years ago Lights, Inc. was doing an average $150,000 annual business; today it does $1,500,000 in a peak month. If it handled all that business under one roof, Lights would have to hire between 10,000 and 20,000 employes, would require between $5 and $10 million worth of unobtainable machinery. Instead it employs only 200 people, owns only about $15,000 worth of machinery. The rest of its work is farmed out--mostly to tiny firms.

Working in a 10-by-12 ft. office, Lights' President Thayer Thorndike faces a big Navy E flag which will be formally presented to the company on Nov. 18. One reason for the award: Lights, Inc. delivers on time. Besides lighting equipment (75% of its total) the company makes "stuffing tubes" (which hold cables on ships), bomb release pulleys, etc., and is planning to subcontract the manufacture of Butex, a synthetic rubber compound.

Key to Lights' success is that it maintains a small, able engineering staff which plans its own products, breaks them down into efficient subcontracting units, supervises their final assembly.

Related to two old Boston families (Thayer and Thorndike), the young president served a turn with First National Bank of Boston and with Boston Skyways. On a trip to Los Angeles he bought the bankrupt plant of Kay Bee Manufacturing Co., a motorcycle-light manufacturer, began making aviation lighting equipment. Lights, Inc., formed in 1932, supplied Pan American with field equipment, zoomed in 1940 when the Government ordered $1,400,000 worth of portable lights.

In June 1941, Thorndike brought Kimball into the firm because of his knowledge of manufacturing. A graduate of Annapolis, where he was a classmate of Admiral Leahy, Harry Kimball failed to stay in the Navy because he was one of the seasickest midshipmen ever enrolled. Instead he went to work for Boston Edison, became president of American Zinc, later went to Remington Arms, which he piloted through World War I.

Thorndike and Kimball have now become evangels of subcontracting. They believe, labor shortage or not, that right in the Los Angeles area are 4,000 potential small subcontractors starving for work, including the "cream of the country's mechanics."

Both see subcontracting as something more than a war need--as perhaps the hope of the little businessman in the future. Not long ago the president of a big manufacturing firm, who has sweated blood to get his operation wholly integrated under one roof, took a look at Lights, Inc. Said he: "Mr. Thorndike, you're just four years ahead of us."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.