WARREN, Ohio – A company that manufactures and distributes electrical components found two reasons to celebrate Tuesday.
REM Electronics commemorated 70 years in business by hosting an open house at its offices and plant at 525 Park Ave. Tuesday afternoon. However, the day marked another special occasion.
“Today would have been my dad’s 95th birthday,” said Janet Dyer, president. Dyer’s father, Robert E. Miller, established the company in 1955 in a small storefront along West Market Street. He died in 2018.
“I just hope that we’ve taken his legacy and built on it,” Dyer said.
Today, REM Electronics distributes and performs value-added manufacturing for electronic parts bound for customers locally and all over the country. These include clients in manufacturing, the medical field, government and logistics industries. The company also provides troubleshooting services, engineering assistance, problem-solving services and 3D-printing capabilities.
“We do a lot of troubleshooting with other engineers when they’re trying to design things,” Dyer said. “And then we use all of our additive manufacturing skills to sometimes find those solutions.”
REM assembles and distributes components such as transformers, wiring systems and circuit boards, for example, among other products.
The company employs 28 people, many who have been with REM for decades. “We don’t have turnover,” she said.
Meanwhile, younger employees have greeted their jobs with great enthusiasm, Dyer added. “We have a group of young people that are excited and love to be creative, because we let them be creative. I just tell them, ‘Dream.’”
A Humble Storefront, Then Growth
Robert E. Miller established the company 70 years ago this year in Warren just after his discharge from the U.S. Navy, Dyer said. At the time, the business focused on the latest technological innovations that started showing up in living rooms across the country – television.
“My dad started in a small shop selling TVs on Market Street,” as well as stereo equipment, she recalled. The business would then adapt to seismic changes underway across Trumbull County, as more opportunities opened with the arrival of a major manufacturer.
“General Motors came to town,” Dyer said, referring to GM’s decision to construct its massive automobile production plant in nearby Lordstown. “He walked into General Motors and told them, ‘You need parts for these machines.’ And the distribution side of the business was born,” she said. “It boomed – and it boomed fast.”
The business then relocated to another site in an old armory building along the Mahoning River, where it exited the TV and stereo business and devoted its efforts to distribution.
REM would again pivot when a customer came in and asked whether the company could repair a circuit board. “All of it changed,” Dyer said. “By the time we moved in here, we were doing all kinds of circuit boards by hand.”
REM moved to its current location in 1974.
Expansion, Investment Drive New Markets
Dyer said the company over the past several years has made key investments in renovations and in new equipment that is able to expedite production and expand REM’s capabilities.
“It’s really cool stuff we do,” she said.
Ankit Vaidya, among the younger employees at REM, said the company has developed troubleshooting processes that ensure circuit boards are working properly, or used to identify any problems.
“We want to make sure they work before they go out,” he said. The company is also working with new designs such as flexible circuit boards, he said. “We’re trying to get into something really new.”
REM’s 3D-printing capacity is used for both engineering purposes and to manufacture components for in-house use, Vaidya added.
The company embarked in 2018 on a large-scale renovation of the plant, section by section, Dyer said. The most recent upgrade was its surface mount room, where circuit boards are assembled and then placed in an oven for soldering. The boards are then sent into other sections of the plant for further processing and final wave soldering.
Much of the latest equipment supports the surface mount operations within the plant.
Anthony Lopez, a wire technician and soldering operator, is busy assembling a wire harness for a power pulse control, which includes a switch and a knob that adjusts voltage.
“This specifically controls a conveyor belt,” he remarked as he held the switch and voltage knob assembly. The company assembles and manufactures these components based on customers’ specifications, he added.
“We can do just about anything,” Lopez said. “All it takes is for someone to print up a blueprint. As long as their drawing works to their specifications, we have the equipment to make what they want a reality.”
REM also has a branch in Erie, Pa., and at one point had offices in El Paso and Laredo, Texas, and a satellite office in Pittsburgh.
Dyer said business received a huge jolt during the Covid-19 pandemic, since REM was able to source hard-to-find components that others could not supply.
“We did an incredible business in distribution during Covid because of that,” she said. “We’re at a point where we need to keep the technology going.” As such, the company plans to leverage training partnerships with organizations such as the Mahoning Valley Manufactures Coalition and partnerships with the Youngstown Business Incubator.
It’s led the company to pursue additional markets, potentially the defense industry, Dyer added.
Dyer reported that overall business is improving after a drop during the first half of the year. “In the last week and a half, there’s been some really big orders coming through,” she said. “I think we’re on the other side of all of that.”
Pictured at top: Janet Dyer stands next to new equipment used in circuit board assembly.