Siegler Corporation
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The Siegler Corporation was created by a group of investors in 1952 in Chicago Illinois (incorporated in Delaware) and began operations following the acquisition of the Siegler Heater Corporation in Centralia, Illinois. John G. Brooks (Echo Products, Zenith Radio, and US Army Air Corps) headed up the new enterprise. (Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois).
[edit] History
The principals worked for a year to prepare the aged space heater company to become a viable corporate platform for the purpose of acquiring multiple successful small companies. This strategy of "buying growth" coupled with sound management of operations and strong sales goals equated to a new breed of corporate philosophy. At the end of its first year, the corporation "went public" with an underwriting by Irving Trust and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Siegler Corporation quickly distinguished itself as one of the first (if not the first) conglomerates. These were a new breed of business entities that were characterized by a variety of diverse business interests or operating divisions held or controlled by a central management. This management component may have been the only thing these "divisions" had in common. Examples of conglomerates are LTV (Ling Temco Voight), TRW (Thomson Ramo Wooldridge).
Siegler continued its program of non-hostile acquisions of target Company’s. Its momentum took it (and its corporate headquarters) to southern California in 1956-1957 when it added Hallamore Electronics of Anaheim, Ca. From that point on it became a substantial contributor in the aerospace field, which was electrified by the 1957 launching of the Soviet satellite "Sputnik". [1]
During the post WWII era, the United States was locked into a military, political and scientific competition with the U.S.S.R and to a lesser degree with communist China. The Americans had built and used the first atomic bomb and pre-eminence in all things notable was regarded as "proof" of the superiority of the capitalist/democratic system. The soviet launch triggered a "space race". [2]
