Strattec Security Corporation

International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 73 (2002) by Ed Dinger

Strattec Security Corporation

3333 W. Good Hope Road Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53209 U.S.A. Telephone: (414) 247-3333 Fax: (414) 247-3329 Web site: http://www.strattec.com

Public Company Incorporated: 1994 Employees: 2,000 Sales: $195.6 million (2004) Stock Exchanges: NASDAQ Ticker Symbol: STRT NAIC: 336399 All Other Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturing

Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Strattec Security Corporation is a spinoff of Briggs & Stratton Corporation's automotive lock division. Since gaining its independence in 1995, Strattec has become the largest maker of automotive locks and keys in the world. The company also serves the heavy truck, recreational vehicle, marine, and industrial markets. Product offerings include mechanical and electromechanical locks as well as security/access control products and latches. In addition to automakers, Strattec supports automotive aftermarket customers. More than 80 percent of the company's revenues come from four customers, automakers Ford, General Motors (GM), and Daimler-Chrysler, and auto parts manufacturer Delphi Corporation. Through a series of joint ventures in Germany, Brazil, and China, Strattec has gained a global presence. Strattec is a public company listed on the NASDAQ.

Lineage Dating to the Early 1900s

Although Briggs & Stratton is best known today for its lawnmower and other outdoor power equipment engines, when the company was founded it was very much focused on the automobile, eventually establishing a lucrative automotive key business. The men behind the Briggs & Stratton name were Stephen Foster Briggs, an electrical engineer and inventor, and Harold M. Stratton, who had launched a successful business career at his uncle's grain trading partnership. The two young men became partners in 1908, interested in manufacturing the six-cylinder, two-cycle automobile engine Briggs had designed while a student at South Dakota State College, from which he had recently graduated. Unfortunately the engine was not suited to mass production and the partners tried to become involved in automaking, creating a model called the Superior assembled from third-party parts. When this effort failed as well, all but forcing the company into bankruptcy, Briggs & Stratton looked to the specialty parts market. Briggs invented a new starter that gave the young company a foothold in the electrical specialties sector. By the start of the 1920s Briggs & Stratton was the United States' largest maker of ignitions, starting switches, regulators, and specialty lights. The company was casting about for other profitable niches as well, trying any number of products that it soon abandoned, such as oil filters and air cleaners. It also looked outside the automotive industry, trying its hand at producing radios, refrigerators, candy display stands, soap containers, and calendar banks. In 1924 Briggs & Stratton became involved in the automotive key business, a niche that proved profitable and became a mainstay.

Briggs & Stratton developed a new zinc die-cast lock cylinder that was far superior to the standard brass models. During this period, automobiles relied on a bevy of locks and keys, not just for the doors and ignition system but also the transmission, spare tire, and radio. Briggs & Stratton took advantage of this arrangement by creating a system of locks that could be opened by a single master key, which the company sold for 75 cents to many a frustrated driver. In 1929 Briggs & Stratton shipped more than 11 million automotive locks, more than 75 percent of the market, making it the largest maker of automotive locks in the world. The company added ancillary products, such as key cutting machines, key depth deciders, key code books, coding tools, and specialized tools used to service the locks. Automotive locks and accessories became Briggs & Stratton's main business, accounting for 70 percent of all sales, but the company also was pursuing a new product line that would eventually surpass locks in importance: small engines.

With automobile production severely limited during World War II Briggs & Stratton's automotive key unit shifted its focus to war-related items such as ignition switches for airplanes and aircraft guns, and detonating fuses for bombs and artillery shells. The company's small engines found a multitude of applications in all branches of the military, used in generators, mobile kitchens, repair shops, emergency hospitals, water purification systems, pumps, compressors, and ventilating fans. Demand was so strong for the engines that sales, less $800,000 in 1938, grew to $6 million in 1944, the last full year of the war.

World War II: A Watershed Moment

World War II proved to be a watershed moment for Briggs & Stratton, as the automotive key business was surpassed in importance by the company's small engines. During the postwar housing boom, as servicemen returned home and began raising the Baby Boom generation of children in the country's new suburbs, Briggs & Stratton's small gasoline engines found an increasing market in lawn and garden equipment, so much so that Briggs & Stratton in the mind of many consumers became synonymous with the lawnmower. The lock business was now part of Briggs & Stratton's Automotive Division and, although overshadowed by the company's small engines, remained a leader in its field, due in large part to the contributions of Edward Jacobi, who during his 53 years with Briggs & Stratton was responsible for more than 225 patents relating to locks. During the 1940s, for example, Jacobi invented the unit shutter, the ubiquitous flap that slides over an exterior car lock to prevent the interior from being contaminated by the elements. Another important Jacobi contribution during this time was the pick-resistant side-bar lock.