Salt Lake City: Livability in the 21st Century

BEIJER ELECTRONICS
A leading provider of user-friendly automation solutions
on a global basis, Beijer Electronics is driven by a strong
commitment to people and technology while providing
innovative and reliable automation and communications
solutions to improve its customers’ businesses.
In 1983 twin brothers Jim and John Elwell, both electrical
engineers, began making battery-operated computers as
QSI. Both worked in fields needing such computers, Jim
with sounding rockets and John with down-hole oil well
instrumentation. Utilizing a private “blue sky” stock offering
from individuals, they raised the entire $60,000 capital to
start their business.
Jim, originally the only employee, was soon joined by a
part-time secretary, then by John Coffee, a university student
who designed many of the company’s products before moving
on. John Elwell worked there briefly before leaving to work
for one of QSI’s customers, but retained his stock ownership.
Extremely tight finances and long hours marked QSI’s
early days. For two years, Jim worked eighty hour weeks with
few days off. When the company almost ran out of money in
1984, a secondary offering raised another $54,000, augmented
by occasional family loans. Sales during the first year totaled
$50,000, gradually increasing to $780,000 in 1988.
After a large order from Thiokol Corporation (now ATK)
in 1988, QSI was overstaffed and left with inadequate funds.
An ill-advised move from an industrial park in South Salt
Lake to the USU Research Park in Logan tripled the rent and
placed the company ninety minutes from many suppliers.
From thirteen employees, QSI scaled back to three, moved
back to South Salt Lake, and rebuilt the business.
“QSI operated nearly twenty-nine years from founding to
selling, and spent eleven years learning how to run a business,”
Jim says. “In 1994, we released a support product—a small,
inexpensive, handheld terminal (20 keys, 4 x 20 character
display) that our low-power computer board used to set
up and check systems in the field. By 1990 it was bringing
in more than the low-power computers, so QSI became a
terminal manufacturer. We hired our first marketing/sales
professional when sales reached $1 million. In the fairly rapid
growth that followed, we reached $20 million in 2008.”
Initially, the company designed some of the lowest-power
computer boards available, often going into systems that
would be field-deployed for six months with a set of flashlight
batteries, Jim said, adding, “Later we developed very
strong expertise in making LCD displays function in very
nasty environments. At no point did the company ever file
for or receive a patent on any of these products.”
After selling to Beijer Electronics, Inc., QSI became
Beijer’s North American subsidiary, offering not only
exceptionally rugged, handheld, pedestal-mount and
panel-mount terminals, graphics, full-color, etc., but
also Beijer’s robust hardware and innovated HMI software.
Like all business owners, Jim and John learned as they
went along. One of their first and most important lessons
was to ensure that their board of directors is composed
of people with experience relevant to industry, rather
than consumer, medical or military experience, and who
understand industrial challenges.
S A L T L A K E C I T Y — L i v a b i l i t y i n t h e 2 1 s t C e n t u r y
236