In 1947, Victor “Doc” Andrew was searching for a new home for his fledgling high-tech communications company. The bungalow he was renting near Midway Airport was becoming cramped with cables, connectors and components.
After growing up in Wooster, Ohio, Andrew (1902-1971) dreamed of a rural location for his new facility.
A physicist by training, Andrew developed a passion for radio at a young age. While other teens worked paper routes, Andrew, who owned his first ham radio at 15, set up his transmitter in the back seat of his car and became Wooster’s first mobile radio serviceman.
Andrew officially went into business in January 1937. That first month, he sold $32 worth of cable and supplies. His business, incorporated in 1947, took off during World War II, when he supplied the military with coaxial cable and communications components.
After scouting Chicago’s outlying areas for his company’s new location, Andrew chose Orland Park, where he bought 430 acres. Folklore has it that he selected Orland Park so his employees would always be able to look out the window and see grazing cows and rolling farm fields.
“The cows are definitely gone,” joked Andrew Corp. President Guy Campbell, 53, referring to the housing boom surrounding the company’s Orland Park headquarters. “But Doc Andrew’s guiding philosophies are not.”
Gone, too, are the $32 sales months.
Today, Andrew Corp. is an international, publicly traded company that employs more than 4,500 people (about 1,600 in the Orland area) and generated sales exceeding $791.5 million in fiscal year 1999.
Listed 67th on the Tribune’s ranking of Chicago’s Top 100 Companies, Andrew has 70 locations in 27 countries.
Andrew supplies communications systems equipment and services to phone carriers, defense electronics manufacturers, communications firms and Internet service providers. Clients include ABC, AT&T, Motorola, NBC, Nextel and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Defining the company’s products in layman’s terms is a mouthful.
“What exactly we do is hard to explain,” Campbell said. “If I’m in Chicago and people ask, I point to the top of the Sears Tower and say, `See those antennas up there?’ We make those.”
Basically, Andrew manufactures the components and cables that make the communications industry hum.
A closer examination of some of the antennas atop the Sears Tower or the broadcast dishes outside WGN’s television studio on Chicago’s North Side reveals Andrew’s red flash logo.
“The flash is to us what the swoosh is to Nike,” said product specialist Mike Schaefer during a recent tour of Andrew’s Orland Park facilities. “It can be found on products operating throughout the country and on almost every continent.”
The company also has quietly made its mark on its hometown and beyond. For more than 50 years, the Aileen S. Andrew Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Andrew Corp., has funded educational and community service efforts in towns where company facilities are located.
Named for Andrew’s wife, Aileen (1895-1967), the foundation has paid for the college education of more than 700 students since its founding in 1945. Robert Hord Jr., foundation president and grandson of Victor and Aileen Andrew, leads the philanthropic organization, headquartered in Orland Park.
The foundation also funds construction projects that benefit public libraries and recreation areas and contributes to local charities, hospitals and community organizations.
In 1974, the foundation donated $500,000 to build the Orland Park Public Library, named for Aileen Andrew and completed in 1976. Five years later, the foundation donated an additional $1 million to expand the library.
“And they’ve done it all very quietly,” said library director Sharon Wsol. “Through the foundation, Andrew has been very generous to the village.”
“Andrew has a history of being in and supporting its community,” said Jack Baldermann, principal of Sandburg High School.
“Two and a half years ago, we had a dream of putting in a school radio and television station,” he said. “But the startup costs were just too expensive. The Andrew Foundation stepped in and covered the $90,000 in costs.
“Hundreds of students would have never been able to participate in radio and television programs if it hadn’t been for Andrew Corp. and the generosity of its foundation. They have been very good to us.”
The product lines that led to such largess–antennas, satellite dishes and the cables that connect them–are not the most glamorous lines to market.
About half of the company’s revenue comes from coaxial cable products, which are used mostly to carry signals from the ground to the top of high-powered antennas. Andrew dominates this high-performance cable market with an estimated 50 percent share.
Just as non-techs have trouble describing Andrew products, Rhonda Wickham, editor and chief of Wireless Review, an industry trade publication, had trouble categorizing Andrew’s products.
“You can’t classify Andrew’s products as Cadillacs or Yugos,” she said. “They are industry staples. You drive down the highway and see a (cellular) tower and you expect to see the Andrew lighting bolt (logo). It’s almost a given.”
Wickham labeled Andrew’s technology and quality as “the industry’s standard.”
“There are a lot of newer and younger companies out there that are chasing the Andrew reputation,” she said. Andrew “has just been around for so long and is so well known and respected, especially in coaxial cable.”
Although respected within the industry, Andrew has struggled in recent years by Wall Street standards. The stock, which soared nearly 200 percent during the early- and mid-1990s, tumbled in 1997 more than 50 percent from its highs, as domestic and U.S. infrastructure expansion slowed.
In the last few months, the stock has rebounded.
Financial analyst Wojtek Uzdelewicz of SG Cowen tagged the company’s recent turnaround as encouraging for investors.
Stock prices hit a 52-week high Jan. 21, after company officials announced better-than-expected profits for the corporation’s fiscal first quarter and a 7 percent increase in sales.
“The recent news out of Andrew is better,” Uzdelewicz said. “There are a lot of good things taking place.”
He attributes his optimism to recent management changes and a pickup in wireless-infrastructure demand both domestically and in Asia and Latin America.
“The U.S. market makes up 50 percent of Andrew’s business, while Asia and Latin America represent 25 percent. Demand is up in the U.S., and Asia and Latin America are turning around,” Uzdelewicz said. “The company has also made key management changes. They brought in some new faces, which was important.”
On Feb. 9, company officials announced Campbell’s promotion to president. In September, Andrew’s board is expected to name him chief executive officer. Campbell will replace CEO Floyd English, who was appointed president and CEO in 1983.
“Campbell’s naming as successor is good news,” Uzdelewicz said. “He has proven himself since coming over from Ericsson.”
Uzdelewicz predicted good things for Andrew’s stock.
“They’re conservatively run, they have a strong balance sheet and their management structure is improving,” he said. “We believe this could be one of the better performing stories in the next year or two.”
For Campbell, Andrew’s past and future success can be traced to the company’s philosophy of remaining close to customers and treating employees as family.
“The corporate culture here is unlike any other I have experienced,” Campbell said. “It’s amazing. You retire from Andrew and you keep your ID badge. You’re welcome back any time. People stop by for lunch. They don’t work here anymore, but they’re still part of the family.”
