1973, an amazing year
The year 1973 will not ring a bell to everyone,
yet a lot of things happened in this year!
yet a lot of things happened in this year!
The last bullet may not be of big importance to the world, but for sure changed the lives of a lot of people! Did you know IPP started with just Ball Bearings?
50 years later IPP is still going strong. After following his father’s – Glenn Carson’s – footsteps back in 2003, Peter is now retiring (or at least trying to) leaving Frank Weggeman in charge.
Peter remembers
“Glenn, Rolf, John, John and Peter took a huge risk and started representing US manufacturer MPB Bearings from the beautiful small city of Medemblik. After a while, they changed to represent New Hampshire Ball Bearings and were joined by two new shareholders: Frank and Joachim.”
“The telex was used a lot, international calls were kept short as they were very expensive and with all the different currencies back in those days, IPP took huge exchange risks. It for sure proved challenging, but IPP was up for it! The portfolio was expanded with connectors, rotary switches and cable harnesses. Products IPP still supplies.”
IPP’s founders in 1973. In the middle Glenn Carson.
IPP staff and principals, late seventies. Third from the left (standing) founder Glenn Carson
Looking back, Peter remembers huge successful programs. “For example Fokker, most Fokker aircraft were loaded IPP’s (Janco) switches.” Not less impressive: the WPSU, Eurofighter, Land 400, ESSM and F16 where big successes that ran or run for many years. An achievement he is very proud of.
Eurofighter
Land 400
F16
ESSM
We represent high quality principals that are focused on customization and customer excellence. In 50 years, we have seen a few principals that were taken over by big companies who had their own European offices but IPP always managed to find others to represent in order to maintain a full portfolio. Cole, Laserdyne, Cristek, Delta, Wall, Ducommunn, Aerosense, NEK, KERN, STI, CPI, Paramount Panels. Peter: “ I visited our principals a lot of times over 20 years, keeping in touch and listening to each other is key to our relationship.”
Due to the fact that we always have a small and agile team, we are able to react swiftly to changes and crises. Economic ones, but also smaller matter (but not less important) such as export control. Although Peter is mostly retired, he still loves his role in export compliance.
After 5 decades we have a loyal, professional team of people and principals who take care of our customers in an excellent way. It is Peters wish that we keep on going like this, making and keeping our customers and principals happy. We proved that we can manage a lot more customers with the same size of our team, due to automation and keep fine-tuning our processes. But, and keeping an eye on new opportunities and developments, like we did with adding Laserdyne systems to our portfolio.
Some facts and figures
Frank (Weggeman, IPP’s General Manager) wants to underline that the keystones of the success of the last 50 years will not be changed.
“Finding solutions for our customers, be reliable with offers, orders, lead-times and quality and also taking care of the interest of our principals and IPP people. There are differences in countries, languages, currencies and rules. Circumstances will change but that is in most cases just a challenge to find the right solution.”