Curt Gerrish comes home to found booming business

By SEAN DOYLE
Essex County Newspapers

NEWBURYPORT — Anyone who says you can’t go home again hasn’t talked with Curt Gerrish.

Gerrish, the president of Rochester Electronics, came home to the city some 10 years ago and hasn't left since. The Newburyport High School graduate now running one of the city's fastest-growing businesses calls his return "the best thing I ever did."

But the appeal of Newburyport to an entrepreneurial young businessman was not always apparent. In his 20s, Gerrish bid farewell and went to work for Motorola, making his way up to distribution manager for its semiconductor division.

And even as he felt the need to branch out and start his own company, he founded Rochester Electronics north of the border in Rochester, N.H., in 1981.

"That was what everyone did. There was no place to work around here," Gerrish said.

The company moved to Wakefield, and then ran out of room.

"I happened to talk to some people who suggested the (Newburyport) industrial park," Gerrish said. "It was a great opportunity not only to build a building in the park, but also to move back here."

Today, Gerrish can look out his office window and see Rochester's brand-new manufacturing and warehouse facility. The 60-employee company has hired 20 people in the past year and will probably hire 20 more in the coming year, as Gerrish thinks business will continue growing at its current rate of 20 percent a year.

He has good reason to be optimistic. In 1981, Gerrish got the idea to establish himself in a niche market, the manufacturing and distribution of discontinued semiconductors, materials that help move electricity through computers.

Rochester started out selling Motorola products and has added 18 other companies since.

Gerrish now regularly meets with high-powered clients such as the U.S. Department of Defense and has contracts with such industry giants as Intel and Texas Instruments to manufacture and distribute all their discontinued semiconductors.

And as the rapid growth of the here-today, gone-tomorrow computer and electronics market continues, so does the growth of Gerrish's enterprise.

"When I started out selling, I found that customers would not protect themselves by buying extra inventory, even though there was the threat it wouldn't be there," he said. "At the time, it wasn't a bad way to do business, because it took a long time for companies to discontinue their products, about 15 to 18 years. Now it's about 18 months. It turned out to be a good business to get into.

"I had an idea, but it was just a glimmer of what it turned out to be. It used to be that manufacturers would just discontinue a single product. Now they'll shut down entire factories, and it's because of an improvement in technology."

And as business has grown, Gerrish has positioned Rochester to be the leader in its market. Instead of just distributing discontinued parts, Rochester takes specifications and builds those parts itself if necessary.

Gerrish said the manufacturing of semiconductors now accounts for more than half of Rochester's business and will jump to 75-80 percent within the next three years.

Additionally, Rochester has the programs to test all the parts it manufactures; it has 25 testing machines costing between $1 million and $3 million each at its facility.

"We're absolutely out of room in this building," Gerrish said with a glance at the site of a second building next door that was under construction.

Rochester is also growing outside of Newburyport. About 25 percent of the company's business is done internationally, mostly in Europe and Japan. Gerrish said Rochester already has an office in England and also plans to open more offices around the U.S. and hire more employees.

Rochester's web site gets about 40,000 page hits per week, Gerrish added, a number that is indicative of the increased demand for the discontinued semiconductors.

"We're a small part of the industry, but it's an important part," Gerrish said. "If you have a whole system and there's just one component missing, you have to rebuild the entire system."

But beyond the nuts and bolts of his own operation, Gerrish, 63, has taken an interest in the city he returned to.

He sits on the board of the Newburyport Area Industrial Development Corp., which administers the industrial park property. He's pushing for the completion of a proposed access road next to Route 95, which would open up more land for industrial development.

He would like to see a hotel somewhere in the city to accommodate the clients Rochester and other industries bring to Newburyport.

He's even trying to float a proposal to develop a municipal ballpark on the city's dump property on Crow Lane.

"If I'm able to offer a few good ideas to make something happen, I'll be happy with that," he said. "I take an interest in things that are going on in the city, and I try to contribute if I think it's worthwhile. I'm more interested in what goes on in the city as I get older."

And while the ballpark proposal is still just an abstract idea, Gerrish is willing to add his two cents to any conversation on it, just as he is with the other issues.

As a guy who started an international business based on the prospect of selling out-of-production computer parts, he still realizes the value of running with an idea.

"Someone has to throw it out there so it gets pushed around," Gerrish said. "Maybe there are reasons why some things can't be done, but I think we should at least consider them. I think some people might be afraid they'll be attacked for a `crazy' idea, but some of the best ideas are the ones that look most foolish."