Penn Elcom celebrates 50 years of being at the forefront of creating legendary AV, production and entertainment hardware! Expanding and diversifying, Penn Elcom has been able to deliver the best flight case hardware, racking, speaker components, cabling, LED products and more over a vibrant and innovative half-century.
Founded by Roger Willems in 1974, Penn Elcom has grown from a metal engineering plant to a worldwide operation. With 600 employees across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania, driven by the commitment and passion to get customers the best products with global teamwork and pioneering solutions.
Behind the success story, there has been plenty of vision, serious hard work, and a joyful willingness to embrace change and the future, and the nerve to sustain a degree of risk-taking...
Humble Beginnings
From concert venues to conference centres and from clubs to Hollywood blockbusters like Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1, you can find Penn Elcom everywhere! It all began in Penn, Buckinghamshire, when 26-year-old Roger bought the first Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd. machine, starting a business focused on steel fabrication, anodising and other sub-contractual work.
Born into a working-class family in Glasgow, Scotland and one of seven siblings, Roger was a natural entrepreneur since an early age. He worked on several paper rounds, then as a bookseller and a silver service waiter, and turned his hand to pretty much everything under the shadow of the then-notorious Easterhouse estate.
Sharpening his street smarts, Roger graduated from office boy to metal merchant, using his charisma and quick wit to become a star metal merchant. This combination of skill and knowledge led Roger and his business partners David Wanstall and Ron Luzar to purchase Penn Anodising, located on ‘Penn Estate,’ an industrial area on the edge of the picturesque village of Penn. They soon began sourcing, anodising and polishing metal products under the name Penn Fabrication.
Rock'n'roll
In 1981, Andrew McCulloch ran a rock’n’roll flight case company, Bulldog Cases, and sought specific components such as handles, corners and butterfly clips. Upon discovering Penn Fabrications, Andrew trusted their ability to deliver excellent, quality products.
Straight after christening this partnership, Roger recalled how their first meeting followed one between Andrew and the lead singer of 1960s rockers Manfred Mann. This opportunity became not just one that would expand their business into rock ‘n’ roll coolness but ultimately define the flight case manufacturing world to seismic effect.
Global View
“Everyone back then (the 1980s) had a massive sense of adventure, and we all dreamed big,” recalled Roger, discovering many opportunities to fuel his appetite for new markets and possibilities. Starting with manufacturing metalwork, Penn began to develop ingenious, cost-effective, problem-solving products for a global market.
Acquiring New Jersey-based sound mixing hardware manufacturer Audiotec in the early 80s, Roger’s great friend Phil Stratford – then still a fresh-faced forklift driver on the Penn Estate – went over to manage this with his younger brother, Richard. Meanwhile, another friend Frank McCourt started Penn Fabrication on the West Coast of the US, expanding into cables and installation.
These moves and many more over the next two decades set the template of steady growth and diversification, with Penn’s product portfolio expanding alongside its international reach to Canada, Australia, Latin America and across the world…
In 2003, it culminated with Penn Fabrication merging with Californian manufacturer Elcom Hardware to become Penn Elcom. Combining their operations, Penn Elcom was able to buy out minority shareholders, with Phil and Roger leading the group into the new millennium.
A Crucial Moment
Staying tuned into technology and global customer demand, in 2004 the Penn Elcom team met Chinese entrepreneur Stanley Wong, launching a pathway in international manufacturing based on ‘“mutual respect for his wonderful engineering skills, knowledge, and intelligence.”
Opening Penn Elcom China was critical to competing on the world stage, becoming an integral part of the business. Working with Jesse Chen and their dedicated team, Penn has advanced many new projects with a locally managed and run operation that ensures and maintains quality production with quick service for its customers.
Integration
Following the highest and most rigorous quality standards, Penn Elcom’s twenty-year investment into its two UK factories (Washington, County Durham and Hastings, East Sussex) alongside the purpose-built new 180,000 square metre facility in Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, China, has ensured its global success.
Penn Elcom has actively harnessed growth by embracing different dynamics, cultures and working practices.
Widening the scope, in 2019, Penn Elcom GmbH was taken over from Dennis Meertens - who still runs the daily operations - and Thomas Mostert, now retired, giving Penn Elcom a prime distribution hub on the German / Dutch border, ideally placed for access and movement of goods all across Europe.
People Matter
Penn Elcom’s people-focused passion has enabled staff to develop, excel and be included in the ever-evolving Penn Elcom story, with the encouragement to follow good ideas and spot hidden opportunities.
“It’s allowed us to remain agile and able to react to various situations and make decisions quickly as needed,” Roger confirmed, “and this MO will keep us moving forward well into the future.”
Independent ownership has been instrumental to this passion, starting with Roger all those years ago. Today, Roger is still involved in many day-to-day aspects, frequently visiting Penn Elcom facilities worldwide, developing new products and business opportunities and still having fun!
A modest engineer at heart, “I know I drive everyone crazy at times,” he comments with a smile, "but there is real sense of pride, togetherness and family at Penn Elcom", something that has been preserved even throughout the company's continued and substantial growth. Penn Elcom remains firmly Roger's baby, and he’s every bit as fired up about the company and the future as the day it all started 50 years ago!
We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone, staff, friends and customers, who have helped Penn Elcom along this journey – without all of you, we would never have achieved this milestone. It’s been a hell of a ride… here’s to the next 50 years!
