Ron Robinson

2009

With the nickname of Book, how could Ron Robinson go wrong. Dubbed “Mr. Ability” by the Reflector Staff Ron left GHS to make his way in the world. Little did he or anyone realize what an interesting and incredible ride that would be. As you will see, Ron surfed some really big waves, quite skillfully, combined with the occasional wipeout and some very serious pauses. 
 
After graduation from GHS, Ron entered Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh where he received a degree in electrical engineering in 1964. 
 
“Other than joining a fraternity, I was not a joiner in college,” Ron says. “I spent my time on academics. For that reason, I enjoyed high school much more than college.” 
 
College now behind him, Ron moved from Pittsburgh to the Cleveland area where he took his first job. He became a development engineer for Lincoln Electric in Euclid, Ohio. Lincoln Electric is the world's largest manufacturer of arc welders. 
 
In Cleveland mutual friends introduced Ron to elementary school teacher Karen Van Saun. In August 1967 they were married. 
 
Ron continued at Lincoln Electric but found he hated working in a lab. It was too restrictive and boring. By December of 1970 Ron had had enough. He quit his job and took a year long sabbatical to regroup. “I had been given an annual bonus equal to my salary for each of the past six years. So in addition to Karen, "my rock," teaching, we had a nest egg which allowed this to happen,” he explains. Ron characterizes this sabbatical as spending “the better part of the next year playing tennis, and trying to decide what to do when I grow up.” 
 
During this time he looked into being a stock broker, sold insurance for a short while [a bust, for him], various other endeavors. Karen on the other hand loved her work teaching First Grade and continued to be the major breadwinner in the Robinson household. 
 
The year of self searching and job searching paid off. Ron finally found a job with an electronics distributor, Schweber Electronics, in Cleveland (Beachwood). “I started by packing customer orders, then inside sales, then I went on the road selling semiconductors, which were hot new products in the early '70s. I loved it, and flourished,” he explains. He was riding a new wave of learning and creativity in a high growth field. 
 
In 1976 the opportunity was presented to Ron to transfer with Schweber to Chicago. Ron and Karen then moved to Glen Ellyn IL where they live today. Karen changed careers in Illinois and opened a needlework shop in Glen Ellyn. Later she managed a Crown Books store, and then was a buyer for Michaels Crafts for 13 years. 
 
Meanwhile Ron’s business grew. He was a success selling semiconductors to the Chicago centered pinball industry. That industry was in their conversion from the old mechanical to the new electronic controls. Ron was very involved with Bally then. Bally was the world's largest manufacturer of pinball machines (That’s where Bally Fitness started). At Bally, Ron enjoyed meeting the artists who created those wild backglasses seen on pinball machines. He began a collection and has several of those backglasses hanging in his home as art. 
 
In 1978 Ron was recruited by Data General. He was asked to take over seventeen states, and sell their new product, a Business Personal Computer, also known as a microcomputer. DG had no product to sell yet as the software was not ready. The idea was to sell the concept and take future orders. “What the heck, it sounded exciting. So I took the plunge,” Ron says. 
 
After a year, DG realized household PCs were too small a product line for them. They were #2 in the world in minicomputers (much larger), while the personal 
computer market was an emerging, but small market in 1978-79. 
 
Ron and his boss at DG thought differently. They talked DG into giving them exclusive distributor rights to 17 states in the mid west. They quit their secure jobs and took a risk. Risk has always been a part of the Robinson game plan. 
 
In 1979 the two mapped out a plan to market and sell these PCs to a brand new type of sales channel, the computer retail store. "The name we came up with for our PC distributor, Diversified Microcomputer Products, was bigger than our company which so far had zero sales," Ron explains.  "Ours was also a new kind of company, a Distributor of computers, selling PCs to computer retail dealers. “We were among the first few to try that anywhere,”
 
However, after a year, 1978-9, of selling the concept, the DG software still was not delivered. “Things were tough,” Ron explains, “Selling a promise taught me 
one lesson. Software is Always late to completion. Through this time, I had virtually no income. Kudos to Karen, no complaints. Somehow, she believed in the concept of business PCs from me. Times were lean, to say the least.” 
 
Then one day in late '79 Ron got a call from a headhunter in Silicon Valley. A giant Japanese computer company wanted to enter the US market, to sell their personal computer products. They wanted Ron to start up and run their US company. That foreign company was NEC, the largest computer manufacturer in Japan. In January 1981 GHS’s Ron Robinson started the NEC’s USA company that would sell NEC’s personal computer products in North America. 
 
This was to prove to be the biggest wave that Ron would ride in the business world. And it was a really big wave. Ron Robinson was destined to become highly recognized in the personal computer industry. Six months later NEC was number one in the industry in North American PC monitor sales. Their products were used on Apple, IBM, and other's PCs. 
 
A short time later NEC introduced an entirely new product, the Kneetop Computer, which was the early name for a laptop. Ron began to sell the NEC kneetop computers to his already developed network of computer stores. NEC had released it’s laptop just one month after Radio Shack introduced the first laptop ever. It was sold by Ron’s company through all the computer retailers other than Radio Shack. “The word processing software in our laptop was written in Basic by Bill Gates,” Ron explains. 
 
Ron goes on to say, “I would call all of our computer dealers together, along with potential new dealers, in an area, such as Atlanta or LA. I would tell them I wanted to introduce a new PC. They would show up at a local hotel (attendance improved if we had Free Food). I would review our popular products, products they were already selling, and ask if they were interested in a new PC. Well, OF COURSE ! So I would open my brief case that was on the table and lift out a.... Laptop.” Ron exclaims. “They were Stunned. You could hear a pin drop. They loved it and it certainly was a success.” 
 
The total memory inside that first NEC laptop was 2K or about the number of words found on the standard 8x11 piece of paper. 
 
Then Ron and his company caught a second wave of success that would propel them to the top with their new product, the dot matrix printer. “Back then, in early 1980s, our name in the industry was second to only IBM and Apple,” Ron declares. “The NEC dot matrix printer was soon to become number one in the PC industry.” 
 
In life, the unexpected happens. While riding this enormous wave of success Ron started to lose weight. In one two month period he went from 198 pounds to 138 pounds or an average loss of one pound per day. He spent three weeks in hospital, followed by three months home recovery, for uncontrolled diabetes and Crohn's disease. 
 
“My energy recovery actually took two plus years,” Ron says. “During that time I stepped aside from being in charge of the US sales company for NEC.” 
 
When Ron finally returned to work he took an internal management job in the now much larger company. NEC’s growth continued like a rocket ship he says. Four years later, Ron transferred to another NEC company, Professional Video, to manage the sales of their manufacturer's reps. 
 
Then in 1994, after thirteen years, Ron left NEC and took a year off, once again. It was time to regroup. 
 
In 1995, Ron then returned to his roots in semiconductors, covering regional sales for Analog Devices, selling digital signal processors, accelerometers, and analog products. An accelerometer is a semiconductor that senses physical movement, i.e. the trigger for a car's air bags. 
 
In 1995, Ron tried to sell accelerometers to a Chicago joy-stick company, so they could play a game on a TV by waving the joy stick around in the air. They didn't think it would work, and would not spend the money to do the research. “That is what is today's Wii,” Ron says. “Too bad that company had no vision.” 
 
Ron left Analog in 1999. At the same time he learned he had one artery 95% and three 60% blocked. One stent and some strong advice from cardiologist later and Ron decided to get off the fast track altogether. His surfing days were over. “I just never interviewed for another job, and so by default, I retired in 1999,” Ron explains. “I am convinced had I not gotten off the fast track I would be dead today,” he adds. 
 
For the past 10 years Ron has invested time in the stock market. “It has been quite a ride too, kind of like the early PC days with hits and misses,” he states. “Karen would rather have our savings in a CD, or under a mattress. But, she has never complained about my business and financial risks. Lucky me, to have her and her patience.” 
 
Over the years, Ron has volunteered a variety of ways. 
 
After his retirement, some neighbors acquired a complete set of drawings from the Smithsonian Institute of the Wright Brothers 1903 Flyer, the first-flight ever aeroplane. Ron joined in, as they started building a full sized replica (40' wingspan) a few blocks from Ron and Karen’s home. 
 
“Oddly enough, none of us were pilots,” Ron says. “Our Wright Flyer was the only Exact Wright replica (of about a dozen built in last hundred years) to ever fly. 
We were on a Wright Brothers Special on the History Channel on Dec 17, 2003, the hundredth anniversary of the first fight,” he adds proudly. 
 
The plane was called Spirit of Glen Ellyn (our town) and it now hangs in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. “What a great three years we had building that plane,” Ron declares. “Getting it to lift off the ground and into flight was as exciting as the early PC days.” 
 
Today Ron has volunteered to advise two local tech start ups. He also volunteers in the neighborhood and currently is taking care of a 95 year old neighbor. “With the help I give him he is able to stay in his home rather than go to a rest home. I feel as good about doing things like this as I felt on the fast track,” he explains. 
 
Ron is still interested in fresh ideas and new companies. He believes he may still have a dozen or so years left where he may somehow get involved in some interesting business once again. “With the right idea and the tremendous power of the internet, things can happen quickly.” Ron emphasizes. 

He maintains his forever love and interest in cars and anything automotive. He also is a big believer in the value of a Recycling society, and follows recycling and environmental issues closely. 

GHS contacts have remained with him throughout the years, maintaining contact via mail, phone calls, email, and visits, with his good friends since age six, Ron Marks and Joe Concannon. 
 
GHS had a tremendous positive influence on him. He credits both Mr Boyee and Mr Baumgartner as his main influences. He calls them his "rocks". “Looking 
back, when I arrived at GHS from Maple Ave school [Don Boyee's last class, seventh grade, as a teacher], I was more intent on being cool. I actually Tried to get into detention. And I remember in ninth grade, Joe Horvat suggesting that we try to join a gang in Youngstown. All we had to do was beat up one of their members to be accepted,” he adds. 
 
Mr Boyee and Mr Baumgartner noted this behavior trend early in his freshman year. “They got me to wake up and smell the coffee,” he says. “After that, all it took from each of them was "a look" in the hallway every few months. Thank you Don ! and Baum !. You really made a difference in my life.” 
Life goes on............ 
 
 

Editors note:  Ron, thank you for the lengthy telephone conversations and your bio sketch which resulted in this very interesting piece. We all grew up in the midst of the birth of the super information age.  To see it from the eyes of our friend and classmate certainly is fascinating.  I honestly think it could be made into a movie.  I am going to send it to a screen writer friend of mine.. Who knows?   ---- Ed DeChant