Ken Burkhalter Email and Phone Number

Helped found company in 1987 and then acquired 100% ownership in 1997. In seven years I grew this document preparation company from $2 million to $3.6 million in sales, increased profitability to over 40% pretax, designed and built a new 13,000 square foot building for the company and increased head count from 21 to 49 people.Company was eventually sold to large European Bank holding company and we retired.

At Interface Systems, an $80 million worldwide company that manufactured computer communication equipment, I assumed responsibility for a new product area that had virtually no management structure and little individual accountability.I implemented planning and scheduling disciplines and totally revamped company’s marketing communications by designing and implementing overall planning guidelines and executing a new coordinated collateral look, a professional trade show appearance, improved public relations, and created a web site presence. Through market research and focus group sessions, specified the outlines for a transition plan and long range effort to renew the company’s main product lines.

Co-founder and president of a company that developed what was acknowledged by leading trade magazines as the most innovative material handling system to be introduced in this decade. Consisting of monorail trains of distributed tilt-tray sorter segments, the product was designed to address the needs of the airline baggage handling industry, the postal document/parcel delivery industries, and the distribution/warehousing and production logistics industries.After $1 million of capital investment, the company was profitable in the first year of operation and sold intellectual property rights to Siemens Corp [6th largest electronics company in the world] which was awarded a contract by the United States Postal Service that had the potential to lead to several $billion in total revenue by the end of the decade. Provided critical company leadership in the areas of product and market development. The company’s products were designed to be world class offerings, and were acknowledged by leading authorities to be unequaled in scope, capability, or value by any other supplier at the time in the world. Early market development efforts lead to the generation of over 1000 prospect leads in three months, and played a significant role in the attraction of major strategic partners.

Founded the company along with the retired president of Toyota America, to develop and market very advanced Voice Messaging and Auto Attendant equipment.This very advanced product was sold to corporations and large businesses to streamline and improve their incoming telephone communications.Concepts developed by us, are still unmatched even decades years later.

Responsible for all corporate sales and marketing, including hiring, training, planning, and advertising. The company leased computer hardware/software throughout the Midwest, and included a number of major government and commercial clients.

After designing a marketing strategy for the computer division to enter the new emerging Word processing market, was advanced into inaugural group to establish and implement Product Management concepts into the company. Then was asked to assist in spinning off a new division to develop and manufacture high capacity computer disk drives. Created the business plan for the division (which was funded by corporate) and then managed sales for a 27 state region, landing several of the largest accounts the company had. We developed one of the highest capacity disk drives of the time, an astounding several hundred megabytes on an 8" disk, which looks pretty puny in today's world!

Hired into the Advanced Research Center to work on the team developing and testing the first automobile engine computers, making it the third computer that I worked to design. For the first two computers before that, I was the major design contributor and architect. This effort lead to the incorporation of the first engine computer in the Lincoln, and the beginning of a revolution in automotive vehicle design.

Co- founder of company. Responsible for product planning, engineering development and production engineering for an advanced technology computer-based CRT editing system for the printing and publishing industry. In three years the company developed from an idea to a product sold worldwide to printing and publishing firms through the company's exclusive sales agent, the Graphics Systems Division of the Singer Corporation. As chief architect of this leading edge Word Processing product (one of the first in the world) I was responsible for many new innovations, commonly used today, like double-clicking words/sentences/paragraphs to highlight them automatically for editing.

I was Chief Engineer for this 1000 watt AM radio station, with announcing/disc jockey assignments in addition. Redesigned and modified the Western Electric transmitter for more reliable operation. Designed state of the art broadcast studio transistorized audio equipment, including what was one of the most advanced dynamic audio compressor/limiters then in existence. Totally redesigned two sound studios, including their total gutting and reconstruction. Also worked as an engineer at several TV stations, as well as helped maintain the University of Michigan's radio broadcast studios.