"Stories like his are the result of the founder’s vision. Ed Schweitzer was a professor of electrical engineering when he started his company in his basement in 1984, and was well aware of strengths and weakness in the higher education system. The company, which makes equipment for the global power industry, grew rapidly. It now has 5,200 employees and annual revenue of nearly $1 billion. Until recently, Dr. Schweitzer was involved in all the hiring decisions, presenting every engineer who wanted a job with a problem to solve. The experience, he said, made him wonder if some universities needed “to have a degree recall program, because sometimes [the schools] are shipping defective products.” Dr. Schweitzer prioritizes education at the company, creating an atmosphere where assemblers regularly rise up to technicians and work alongside engineers. “If Thomas Edison walked through the door today, would we turn him away because we don’t have a job opening for an inventor?” said Dr. Schweitzer, whose own father dropped out of college but went on to hold 100 patents." 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
