Jtek Engineering was started in 2003 as a single person contract design company. After 9/11, I was laid off from my deign engineering job in the industrial printing field. I decided to give contracting a try not wanting to have to drive great distances for employment. Contracting was fun and I ended up with quite a few customers with on-going work very quickly. One of my customers was Hed cycling which was quite interesting and fun. I remain friends with them to this day.
Around 2004 I came out with the shiftmate. It has been a very successful product. It was at this point I decided to start selling more of my own products and expand. It was difficult to do this and maintain income. I continued to keep a heavy load of customers contracting, so this made it hard to move things along.
In the fall of 2006 I purchased and older CNC machine off ebay. I wanted to speed up the R&D process and do it all in house. Contracting with outside shops can be slow and sometimes I just wanted to tweak things a little. The used machine was a lot of work learning how to operate and program. They breakdown too! In 2007, I purchased two more CNC's that needed lots of work and fixed them up. The shop is in pretty good shape now day's. I still have a few bug's I need to work out but it has finally paid off.
Unfortunately in early 2007 I was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. I continue to fight this disease and it's been very difficult. I am forced to spend a lot of time in bed. I have quit the contracting and after a period of not knowing what to do, have turned ownership of the business over to my son Ryan to operate. It's been a big job getting him up to speed on things but he's doing well with it all and wish him the best luck with it.