Tech group will honor PC pioneer
SCI founder Kingto get award from state association
Friday, October 07, 2005
These days, Olin King likes to tell people he's an "unemployed has-been." But for a retired businessman, he still keeps a fresh thumbprint on the local entrepreneurial scene.
King, founder of SCI Systems Inc. (now Sanmina-SCI), is an active investor. He runs a commercial real estate concern. He also operates a construction management company.
And he's still being recognized for the decades he spent building one of Huntsville's first home-grown, high-tech firms. Later this month, King, 71, will receive the Alabama Information Technology Association's Lifetime Achievement Award for changing not only Huntsville's business landscape but also the face of high-tech manufacturing.
"Technology is a growing part of Alabama's economy, and it's always nice to have the technology component of the state recognized," said King, who retired from SCI in 2000.
He will be honored at a dinner in Birmingham Oct. 27.
PC revolution
King and SCI were there at the beginning, building systems that spurred the personal computer revolution. At the time, IBM had an enormous distribution network but had difficulty building efficiently. King convinced the company that SCI could ensure a greater reliability in its building of the PC subsystems than IBM could on its own and still meet any delivery schedule. Once the reliability was proven, the PC found a home and more markets.
SCI became Huntsville's largest private employer through the 1980s and '90s, with 6,500 workers in North Alabama and 24,000 worldwide.
Today, nearly all consumer electronics are manufactured by third parties hired by the companies whose labels you see on the goods themselves: Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Motorola and other electronics giants.
King often worked 100-hour weeks building the company, which merged with San Jose, Calif.-based Sanmina in 2001.
These days, "The only way I know I'm supposed to be retired is I don't get a paycheck every other Friday," he said. "I stay busy, but I don't spend a lot of time on airplanes. ... It's nice to not have to get on a plane every Sunday afternoon."
King now spends his time managing his investments; running his commercial real estate interests, which include several buildings in Cummings Research Park; and operating a construction management firm, Crown Group Properties. Crown Group is building the Comprehensive Cancer Institute on 14th Street.
"It's coming out of the ground, concrete is being poured, and blocks are being laid," he said. "It's a rapidly developing project."
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