General Clutch Corporation
Origin of RollEase window shades and blinds[edit]
In 1980 Dr. Francis Mechner and Dr. Martin Waine launched General Clutch Corp. (“GCC”) (formerly named Nisenson Technology Corporation) and located its manufacturing facility at 200 Harvard Avenue in Stamford, Connecticut. The engineer and clutch designer Jules Nisenson had proposed a then-novel mechanism for operating window shades with cord loops and pulleys, where a wrap-spring clutch holds up the shade or blind against gravity. The clutch consisted of a steel spring wrapped around a plastic drum mounted inside a plastic housing. This method for operating window coverings was new at the time and GCC, under the leadership of Dr. Waine, developed and patented several applications of it. Over the following two decades, the method came into world-wide use.
Backgrounds of management personnel[edit]
Dr. Waine, formerly on the physics faculty of Mt. Holyoke College, with a Ph.D. from Yale University, serving as President of GCC, oversaw the technical and commercial development of the company's products and the patenting of their key features, with the support of a team of engineers headed by Edward Rude, Robert Mozdzer, and Garrett Bebell. Mr. Rude was GCC/RollEase's chief engineer. His career as a mechanical engineer centered on the development of innovative systems for NASA, the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Postal Service, and he was the inventor of numerous patents. Mr. Mozdzer designed and built most of GCC/RollEase's manufacturing, testing, quality control, and inventory control systems. Mr. Bebell's entire career has been with GCC/RollEase, performing leadership functions in sales, marketing, administration, and engineering. As of 2006 he has been President of TorqMaster, Inc., described below.
Dr. Mechner, CEO and Chairman of GCC, provided GCC's initial capital. He had a background of founding and building companies based on innovative technologies. Four of his successes were Basic Systems Inc., Chyron Corporation, General Clutch Corp. (a.k.a. RollEase), and Pragma LLC.[1]
In 1965 he sold his educational technology firm Basic Systems, Inc. to Xerox Corporation for the 2020 equivalent of approximately $50 million.[2][3][4] Xerox resold it in 1985 to the Los Angeles Times Mirror for $117 million.[5]
In 1966 Dr. Mechner co-founded Systems Resources Corporation with engineer Eugene Leonard. Mechner and Leonard renamed the company Chyron Corporation for its main product, the television graphics generator now used in TV broadcasting throughout the world.[6]
In 2005 Dr. Mechner co-founded Pragma LLC, now one of the world's leading providers to banks, brokers, and asset managers, of algorithmic and AI-based systems for optimizing the execution of equity and currency trades. Pragma has been named "Independent Algorithmic Trading Technology Provider of the Year" by FX Week's e-FX Awards 2019.[7]
Commercial Development[edit]
GCC had its first commercial successes when it presented its designs to the country's largest window covering manufacturers. Those that showed the greatest interest, and awarded GCC significant development contracts, were Joanna Western Mills (at that time the world's largest window shade manufacturer), Kirsch (at that time the world's second largest manufacturer of window coverings) and Levolor (at that time the world's largest manufacturer of venetian slat blinds). Under these contracts, GCC developed a broad line of proprietary designs for operating window coverings, all based on its clutch technology, and marketed them under the trade name RollEase. GCC adapted its technology to the design of hardware for the operation of roller shades (before the advent of the RollEase pulley-cord loop-operated clutch systems, roller shades were operated by helical coil springs), venetian slat blinds (which had traditionally been operated by a two-string mechanism for tilting and another mechanism for lifting the blind), “soft window treatments,” and cellular shades for whose operation GCC invented a family of new mechanisms all based on the RollEase pulley-cord loop-operated clutch system. After GCC had been marketing these products successfully for several years, the Dutch company Hunter Douglas N.V., then the largest window treatment company in the world, elected to use GCC's clutch-based hardware for the introduction of its “cellular” Duette blind. Hunter Douglas then became and remained GCC's largest customer for over a decade.
Spinoff of TorqMaster Corporation[edit]
In 1987, GCC discovered that its clutch technology was also applicable to the design of precision friction hinges. It thereupon created a new hinge division which it later spun off as the separate company TorqMaster, Inc.[8]
For a time, under the leadership of Dr. Martin Waine, TorqMaster manufactured and supplied the hinges for Apple's first laptop computers, and also for the first laptop computers of IBM, Hewlett Packard, and for Compaq's Drive Box. TorqMaster also supplied its hinges to many other leading computer, electronics, medical equipment, and instrument companies. It provided its precision friction hinge technology to Motorola, Cisco, Medtronic, and Kodak for applications in medical equipment, lab instruments, specialized portable computers, specialized displays (voting machines, point of sale equipment, kiosks, defense), aerospace (seat tray hinges, headrests), conference room equipment, and cabinet doors. As of 2020, TorqMaster, with Garrett Bebell as President, and Drs. Martin Waine and Francis Mechner as Directors, is still a premier developer and manufacturer of precision friction hinges.[9][10]
Sale of RollEase and General Clutch Corporation[edit]
Shortly after the spinoff of TorqMaster, the U.K. firm Gartland, Whalley, and Barker Ltd. (GWB), purchased GCC for a price that corresponds to approximately $50 million in 2020 U.S. dollars, in a cash plus earnout sale.
Under GWB's management and Derek Marsh as CEO, GCC, renamed RollEase, Inc. after the RollEase tradename, continued its rapid growth at the same Stamford CT location, with progressive strengthening of RollEase as a worldwide standard. As of 2020, numerous entities in the window covering industry, throughout the world, had adopted the name RollEase or Rollease for their businesses or products. In 2014, RollEase, Inc. and the Australian firms Acmeda Pty Ltd and Acmeda S.R.L. combined their operations to form the Rollease Acmeda Group – now the largest independent entity in the window covering industry.[11][12][13]
References[edit]
- ↑ "About Francis Mechner | Mechner Foundation".
- ↑ Xerox Corporation 1965 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, p. 13.
- ↑ Xerox Corporation 1965 Annual Report, pp 30-31.
- ↑ Xerox Corporation 1966 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, p. 5.
- ↑ Mechner, F. (2015). Some historic roots of education reform. In R. Holdsambeck & H. Pennypacker (Eds.), Behavioral Science: Tales of Inspiration, Discovery and Service (pp. 229-252). Beverley, MA: Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies.
- ↑ "Home".
- ↑ "Independent algorithmic trading technology provider of the year: Pragma Securities". 12 July 2019.
- ↑ "Torque and Friction Hinge Manufacturer".
- ↑ https://www.globalspec.com/supplier/profile/TorqMasterInternational
- ↑ "TorqMaster International Stamford, Connecticut, CT 06902".
- ↑ "Rollease Acmeda | USA - About Us".
- ↑ "RollEase and Acmeda Merge to Create Global Industry Leader".
- ↑ "ShoreView Invests in RollEase, Inc. – Shoreview Industries".
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