In the town of Wheaton, the image of Snoopy brings one of two things to mind:
The colorful ”Peanuts” cartoon character, or,
Vern Kiebler, 66, a man who started a business in his basement when he was 45, turned it into a multimillion dollar electronics firm and changed the face of his community through his philanthropic efforts.
Sitting in his office, surrounded by a collection of memorabilia of the famous pup, Kiebler is living proof that the old-fashioned values of hard work, integrity and a joy for life can still add up to success.
Snoopy symbolizes his upbeat attitude toward work and life. As a poster-sized Snoopy Christmas card in his office says: ”Peace and root beer for all.”
”First thing in the morning, I read the business section of the newspaper, then I read Peanuts. I have always liked the characters. They cheer you up and make you feel better,” Kiebler said.
From its humble beginnings, Kiebler Electronics has grown to include such clients as Caterpillar and Illinois Bell. Last year the company grossed $14 million, and 145 people work at his plant at the west end of town.
Some of the people who began working with Kiebler on his first contracts are still with him today.
”I love it here,” said Martha Martin, who works as a chief inspector at the plant. ”I don`t think I could find another boss or another company as good as Kiebler`s. He`s just like family. He`s interested in people, in their private lives. If you have a problem, he listens to you and understands.”
He`s easy to work for but demands excellence, said Lee Monroe, who has worked for Kiebler 19 years. ”He is always stressing quality for the customer,” she said. ”It gives you a lot of pride in yourself and what you are doing.”
As Kiebler, a Burl Ives-type father figure, walks with an open-toed gait through the plant jingling change in his pocket, he nods and talks to everyone. He knows them all by name.
”Even though he`s very easygoing and lets other people do their thing, he always knows what`s going on,” said Bill Crothers, who began making deliveries for Kiebler years ago and has worked himself up to the job of director of purchasing and materials.
This sort of easygoing relationship with his employees is one of the things that impressed Bill Borbas, technical manager for Illinois Bell in Chicago, when he toured Kiebler`s plant.
”Nobody seemed like they were trying to duck and hide when he walked around,” said Borbas. ”He talks to people. It`s the kind of place you`d like to work.”
Besides making things happen in the business world, Kiebler also has been a catalyst for change within the town of Wheaton.
Dee Hicks, owner of a local advertising firm and friend to Kiebler for 10 years, has enlisted Kiebler`s help to raise money to build a $1.2-million community theater at the south end of town.
”Vern has this great gusto for life,” said Hicks, president of the Wheaton Community Theater Foundation. ”He is very enthusiastic about life, he has a great zest. You can`t help but get excited about things when you`re around him,” said Hicks, who has worked on various community projects with Kiebler. ”He`ll say, `Let`s do it. Let`s get at it.` ”
And get at it he does.
The entrance hall to Vern Kiebler Electronics is a veritable awards room filled with plaques and honorariums from local community groups, including Man of the Year, Wheaton Rotary, 1985; Community Builder Award, Wheaton Masons, 1987; 10-year plaque for service to the Wheaton History Center; Ron Brinkman Service Award, Wheaton Chamber of Commerce; and Small Business of Year, Arthur Anderson Company, among others.
As for the extent of the awards, Kiebler simply says, ”I like to see things done in the community.”
More noticeable to the average person about town are the visible examples of Kiebler`s generosity and commitment to his community, such as the Vern Kiebler Learning Center at Cosley Animal Farm, named for him because he helped raise funds for and contributed some of his own money for the building of the new barn at the animal museum.
Shrugging his shoulders as if he can`t figure out why the Park District named the barn for him, Kiebler said, ”I guess they named it after me `cause I donated the most money.”
Then there`s the Kiebler Room at the Wheaton History Center, also named for him because of the support, financial and otherwise, he has given the museum for the last 10 years.
”We kept saying we should name a room after him at the History Center,” said Alberta Adamson, executive director, ”but he kept saying `No, no, no.`
One day, the board voted on it when he was absent. He deserved the credit, but he`s not after it. He`s not a glory seeker.”
Bob Dunsmuir, director of Wheaton parks and recreation, agreed.
”Anything he thinks is a good cause in the community, he has always donated to or helped support through giving his time and getting involved,”
said Dunsmuir.
Indeed, some people could say he has even been instrumental in changing the face of Wheaton.
For instance, Kiebler led the charge to put a referendum before the voters on whether to change the longtime status of Wheaton as a dry town to allow beer and wine to be served at restaurants, said Hicks.
”He felt, in order to get a good restaurant in Wheaton, you had to serve alcohol,” said Kiebler`s wife, Jan.
It was a controversial stand in the historically conservative town of Wheaton. Kiebler said, ”I know that there are some people who still do not like what I did, but I felt as though I had to do it for the good of the community.”
As president of the Chamber of Commerce and later a member of the Wheaton Merchants Association, Kiebler launched programs to begin a revitalization of the downtown business area, said Harold Gaede, owner of Gaede`s Clothing Store.
To bring attention to the downtown, Kiebler urged local leaders to put banners on the light poles announcing local events, brought in floodlights for the Moonlight Madness Sale and even dressed up in a white dog costume handing out treats to kids on Thursdays nights when stores were open.
It was Kiebler who pushed for a fountain downtown on Front Street. He felt that Naperville had the Riverwalk, but Wheaton had no river, so why not create their own water display?
”It really has been a good idea,” said Don Rose, city manager of Wheaton. ”The fountain is located in what is now known as the Martin Memorial Plaza (the plaza is named for the late Robert Martin, former Wheaton mayor).
”During the summer time, it has become a place where you can sit, eat an ice cream cone or bag of popcorn.”
Fountains have become something akin to a hobby for Kiebler. He put a fountain in his back yard a few years ago and liked it so much that he has upgraded to larger ones two times.
Standing on the porch that surrounds his house, Kiebler tells a visitor,
”You are looking out on the largest fountain in Wheaton. It`s two tier, with two waterfalls plus a vertical spray on top. There are 12 lights on the bottom, and rotating colored lights on top.”
A fountain also sits outside his office window at the plant. Kiebler`s efforts to enhance downtown Wheaton have spurred other people to become more interested in such projects, said Rose.
Which isn`t to say that he has made everybody happy, said Gaede: ”Some people may not always like the way he does things, but he gets the job done.” ”Anytime that you do things, you`re going to get people who believe you`re doing right and those that don`t. But if you do nothing, you`ll get nothing done,” Kiebler said.
Kiebler hails from St. Louis; his wife, Jan, grew up in Michigan. They met when they were going to school in Missouri, he at University of Missouri and she at Stephens College, both in Columbia. He had just finished serving a hitch in the Air Force, where he had originally wanted to be a pilot but ended up working as a radio range mechanic. His military service sparked his interest in electronics, and he chose to study electrical engineering in college.
He found his first job in Chicago as a project engineer at Hallicrafters, an electronics manufacturing company in Chicago that manufactured military parts, television sets and ham radios and is now a part of Northrup.
”Chicago was the hub of electrical engineering at the time,” Kiebler said. And so the young married couple moved into a two-room apartment, where they shared a bathroom with seven other families.
”It wasn`t easy, right after the war,” said Jan. But when their family started to grow, they started looking for a home and settled on Wheaton, first building a house on the west side of town, and then, a few years later, the modest `50s-style ranch that they still live in today.
Kiebler held several jobs, mostly as a project manager, during the first 20 years of his marriage. He worked at Hallicrafters, ITT, Elgin National Watch, Dynascan Corp. and Comtech Corp.
His last job was with a big company that started a division to sell aircraft parts to the military. The company eventually folded the operation, leaving Kiebler at 45, with two grown children, out of a job.
Jan persuaded him to try to start his own business.
”It was scary, but it was also scary not to find work, too,” said Jan.
”It was the same story as today: You`re over-qualified when times are bad.”
So Kiebler installed a phone in his basement, set up an office, sold the family Mustang to buy a van and started bidding on government contracts. Two months later he had work: a contract with the Navy to build telegraph amplifiers.
He rented out space in a small shop at the west end of town, hired some women to do assembly work in the evenings and then, at the same time, decided to start a branch of the Independent Postal Service.
”We got up at 7 a.m. and did the mail delivery service, and then came back at 8:15 and started the manufacturing business, working to 10:30 or 11 p.m. every night,” Kiebler said.
Eventually, the postal business folded, but the electronics business was booming. Kiebler soon found himself bidding on a $250,000 contract with the U.S. Navy. A year later, he began working with Dow Chemical.
Bill Brown, formerly a manager of telecommunications and operations for Dow Chemical in Michigan, remembers working on projects at Kiebler: ”I enjoyed these trips down to Chicago where we worked all night long, and he worked with us. I appreciated his personnel, because they were all family people and were always trying to please the customer.”
Indeed, Borbas said, one of the advantages of working with Kiebler Electronics is that he can get the boss on the phone any time he likes: ”I deal with him directly, and he makes sure someone takes care of things.”
All of these characteristics together-Kiebler`s work ethic, emphasis on quality and down-home personality-combine to make him the success he is today, say his customers.
And now his plant, which started out as a one-room shop, has grown to a 46,000-square-foot plant at the edge of town that resembles the long, sleek lines of an aircraft carrier.
There, Kiebler Electronics manufactures electronic components such as printed circuit boards all the way up to building control equipment, machines that can handle jobs as simple as slicing bologna to equipment that controls factories.
Among other things, Kiebler Electronics has:
– Manufactured safety devices for Caterpillar that shut down an overheated diesel engine.
– Built controllers for microwave dishes to collect television signals from satellites.
– Worked on the electronics for the lottery system for Illinois Bell.
– Helped implement special electronic devices for Illinois Bell`s 911 system in Chicago.
”It`s kind of exciting, always doing these various projects, as opposed to doing the same thing day in and day out,” said Kiebler. ”Almost anything that comes out these days has something electronic associated with it.”
With all his success in business, Kiebler is still a man who will dress up as Snoopy or Raphael, one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to lead a parade through the factory on Halloween. ”I believe in participation, and by dressing up myself, I show that I am involved in activities,” Kiebler said. He doesn`t drive fancy cars; his wife doesn`t wear furs, and they don`t have any expensive hobbies. His one indulgence is his family.
He has built a lake house halfway between his two daughters, Linda Kiebler Peterson and Sue Kiebler Cermak, who live in Eau Claire, Wis., and Minneapolis, respectively, so that the families can spend lots of time together. No, the lake house doesn`t have a fountain-yet.
He`s an occasional golfer and likes to take cruises and often brings the whole brood along.
Kiebler said: ”We like to splurge on our kids, do lots of things for them, like take them on vacations with us. We`re very close. We see them every other weekend at the lake house and have never missed a Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter together.”
Kiebler himself gives credit for his successful business life and the closeness of his family to wife Jan.
”I really owe it all to her,” he said. ”She has been a catalyst. When things are not going well, she sticks me in the side and says, `You better do something about that.` ”
And do something he usually does, most of the time with a smile on his face, said Dunsmuir.
”I don`t ever think I`ve not seen him smiling,” Dunsmuir said. ”He`s had hip replacement and some medical problems but came through those with a positive attitude just like everything else he does.”
And there`s a reason for that, said Kiebler. Not only does it make life more enjoyable but it also leads to a sense of accomplishment. ”If it isn`t fun,” he said, ”you don`t do a good job.”
