Heurikon Historical Highlights A series of articles for The Horizon by Jeffrey Mattox Our Domiciles Over the years, Heurikon has had seven homes. We started out in the basement of Chris’s house, at 621 Sheldon Street. That’s just off Monroe Street near Wingra Park. Most of the operation, including a circuit board photo and fabrication area, was in the basement. The business phone and answering machine were on a small desk in a hallway. (That original desk is still in use; it is in the telephone equipment room.) Although some business was conducted on the dining room table (which had a good view of the kitchen sink), our most important decisions were made at the Laurel Tavern on Monroe Street. Chris and his family lived upstairs in the house, along with John Burdick (one of Heurikon’s other founders), and an attractive university coed who would occasionally walk through our dining-room office wearing only her bathrobe. Years later, we heard from one of our vendor’s representatives that he visited us often just for the chance to see her parade around. Another notable resident of the house was Chris’ dog, Brandy. She would get real excited whenever a visitor came into the house, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to end up piddling on somebody’s foot. The old story about my foot once being a target is untrue — it was John’s. He just calmly stood there and smiled. It was easy for our neighbors to recognize Heurikon’s visitors. While searching for the “factory,” confused visitors would often drive up and down the street in their expensive cars before realizing the old house at 621 was the correct place.
From One Basement to Another After a short search around Madison, we found a low-rent office in the basement of an apartment complex at 700 West Badger Road. The rent was low, in part because the space didn’t have any heat — most of our heat came in through the ceiling from the apartments above. We rarely had any problems with the other tenants — expect for the time one of them plugged up their tub and let the water run over the top. That afternoon, the ceiling above our drafting area started to sag and then it gave way with a torrent of water. The water also ran down the ceiling support rods and dripped onto our benches and desks.
West Badger Road suited us nicely until 1980. By then we needed more space which we found just across the Beltline, at 3001 Latham Drive, in the rear of Vondra Engraving’s new building. We had 3,000 square feet — and heat and restrooms and carpets, and even a hallway (luxuries absent from our Badger Road offices). There were a few undesirable features, however. The metal roof was not well insulated, and when it rained, it would be so noisy we’d have to shout to be heard. On cold winter nights, condensation would freeze on the metal ceiling, which would slowly melt during the day, causing water to drip all over the benches in the shop. The air conditioners were so loud that Deanie had to turn off the one above her desk whenever she wanted to talk on the phone. By the end of 1982, we needed more space, so, with Vondra’s permission, we cut through an interior wall and expanded to 4,500 square feet (a tenth of what we have now). We had our 1982 Christmas party in the new space (the decor was “primitive unfinished warehouse”). We grew steadily during our years at Vondra. And, we got our first copy machine, wave solder machine, and Gen Rad tester. The Bombay Bicycle Club was only a short walk away, so that served as our business bar.
By the middle of 1985, we were about to burst our walls, so we committed to the first building of our own, and moved a few blocks up the hill to 3201 Latham Drive. Much of the move was done by simply putting our equipment and furniture on carts and rolling it up the hill. From the air, it looked like a line of ants moving along. New amenities included a loading dock, break area, and conference rooms. In late-1987, to make room for our continued growth, the marketing, sales, accounting, and administration departments moved downtown to 121 East Wilson Street. Also, for a few years, we leased two trailers and attached them to the building through the outside exit of the break room. The trailers were home to cost accounting, customer support, and a few other people who managed to squeezed in. The acoustics were horrible. As you walked around in the trailers, your footsteps would resonate throughout the space. We had planned on staying at Latham Drive for ten or more years, but when we needed to expand again, we decided to move to a neighborhood more suitable to our business. The Latham Drive area was an unplanned conglomeration of warehouses, stores, and factories. There was a meat-packing plant on one side of us and a junkyard on another. It just didn’t seem like the right locale for the long-term. This concludes the Heurikon Historical Highlights series.
UPDATE July 2009: In actuallity, Heurikon/Artesyn/Emerson had operations in many more locations. My perspective was from engineering, but other departments occupied other buildings. Here's a good list submitted by Bruce Dittmer:
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