The Bean Counters

4 min read

Once upon a time, great ships of state sailed the seas of commerce. On the bridges of these great ships were the captains of industry, the wise and visionary leaders of that day. Many of them were engineers, who personally embodied a breadth of knowledge and wisdom that enabled them to navigate the murky waters unerringly toward the distant lands upon which their eyes were so firmly set.

Those were the days of yore, a legendary season in history when engineers were in charge. But, now the mists of remembrance have all but closed over those times gone by. Today, the stormy oceans of commerce are full of small and large boats sailing aimlessly under many different flags.

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Asad Madni and the Life-Saving Sensor

His pivot from defense helped a tiny tuning-fork prevent SUV rollovers and plane crashes

11 min read
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Asad Madni and the Life-Saving Sensor

In 1992, Asad M. Madni sat at the helm of BEI Sensors and Controls, overseeing a product line that included a variety of sensor and inertial-navigation devices, but its customers were less varied—mainly, the aerospace and defense electronics industries.

And he had a problem.

The Cold War had ended, crashing the U.S. defense industry. And business wasn’t going to come back anytime soon. BEI needed to identify and capture new customers—and quickly.

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