G.R.I. founder George Risk (left), shown with his brother WIlly, developed a passion for electricity at an early age.

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Security products manufacturer George Risk Industries (G.R.I.) Inc. says its success is based on top-notch raw materials, stringent quality assurance standards and dedicated people. The Kimball, Neb., company says its most dedicated individual was its founder, George Risk, who not only grew the business but also shaped the lives of many of its employees.

Risk discovered a passion for electricity at an early age. At 10, he built his first radio. By age 17, he had developed “500,000 Volts of Electricity,” an exhibit in which he used transformers and tesla coils to generate 500,000 volts to operate a man-lifting magnet and Jacob’s ladder.

He demonstrated this in front of audiences in his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Following high school, he owned and operated a radio shop in Wood, S.D., until 1932. He founded Electronic Development Corp. in Omaha, Neb., in 1938, and conducted research to perfect war weapons and other products.

“At the same time, he was operating his electronic radio-television institute, which trained 7,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines under contract with the government during World War II,” the company says. “The school also prepared women to become communications clerks.”

He sold the school in 1944 and operated Electronic Development Corp. until a fire destroyed the business in 1949. After a two-year stint as executive vice president of Chicago-based American TB Laboratories, which manufactured television tubes, Risk moved his family back to Nebraska and started a small electronics company named after his oldest son. Dale Electronics grew to employ 2,600 people and operate multiple plants, focusing on precision resistors. Risk lost controlling interest of the company in the 1960s.

He purchased a Columbus, Neb.-based defunct and inoperative public company in 1968, determined to raise the money to pay off its creditors. This company became George Risk Industries Inc. “George jumped into this new venture with gusto, letting all of his inventive genius come into play,” the company says. “At about this time, a group of businessmen from Kimball, Neb., negotiated with George to relocate G.R.I. to Kimball from Columbus.”

When the company relocated to Kimball, it focused on push-button reed switches and Risk was determined to employ at least five people. Today, G.R.I. employs close to 300 and has a satellite plant in Gering, Neb. When Risk passed away in 1989, his youngest son, Ken Risk, was appointed president and CEO.

Product Excellence
“George invented many products over his lifetime, including many of the standard burglar alarm switches sold today,” the company says. Today, the company’s products include:

• Security, including products for homeowners;
• Data entry peripherals, with more than 30-years of experience in standard- and custom-designed keyboards and keypads;
• Pushbutton switches, such as illuminated or non-illuminated, incandescent lamp, LED, dry reed or mechanical for commercial, aerospace, industrial or medical applications;
• Custom engraved keycaps;
• Proximity sensors, encapsulated reed switches activated by a magnetic field; and
• Solid works, used to increase the company’s efficiency in designing and producing new products.

“Our [zero] defect program is the standard our employees follow,” the company says.  

The company is vertically integrated with in-house facilities for tool and die, injection molding, engineering and production. It also manufactures air traffic control boards used in Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) towers nationwide.

The company’s engineering department uses in-house CAD/CAM and Solidworks, it adds, to design security contacts and custom-designed keyboards and switches to rigid specifications.