Fox News came to the City of Hillsdale, but it wasn’t in relation to the college. The news channel came to see a family-owned electric terminal business, Hillsdale Terminals.
It all started when Jim Condon, president of the company, received a call from Manufacturing Marvels, a two-minute segment that airs on Fox Business Channel every night. The segment spotlights manufacturers in North America, focusing on their products, processes and customers.
“I said I’d talk it over with the family,” Jim Condon said, “and they all felt it was a good idea. We figured it would give us some national exposure, so I called them back and said we were interested.”
Ten days before airing the clip on Fox Business Channel, Manufacturing Marvels sent a freelance videographer from Detroit to shoot the segment. Seven hours of video footage quickly became the two-minute clip, which aired Oct. 28.
The video focused on the company’s main service, which is stamping terminals out of copper, brass, and steel. Then they put an insulator over the terminal and eventually crimp it to a wire.
“We make an electrical connection more secure by using a terminal instead of using the wire against the screw,” said John Condon, vice president of the business. “It’s a much better connection. It’s safer, it’s faster, it’s more durable, and more reliable. There are lots of reasons why professionals prefer to use high quality terminal connections versus do-it-yourself kind of connections.”
When asked, “Why terminals?” John Condon replied, with a laugh, “Why not?”
John and Jim Condon, brothers, co-own Hillsdale Terminals. The company is 43 years old. Jim Condon and John Condon recalled when their father, Frank Condon, started up his own terminal company after working at Vaco Products, another terminal company in Jonesville.
“He didn’t want to work for a company that got all of the rewards,” John Condon said. “He wanted to have his own business and get some of the rewards. I think he liked the idea of a family business too.”
John Condon owned his own tool and die business and was 18 when his father opened Hillsdale Terminal. He eventually sold his business to the company and became an employee with his own department. Jim Condon signed on soon after.
“I didn’t have a job in 1982. I had been in the restaurant business, and I was burned out from that,” Jim Condon said. “That’s when my dad said, ‘Why don’t you come and work for me?’ I said, ‘Dad, I don’t know anything about the business.’ Then he asked me what two plus two was and I said four. And he said, ‘You’re hired.’ That was my job interview. I started out at 4 dollars an hour,” Jim Condon said.
The business has been growing ever since.
“There’s a Bible verse that says, ‘hard work leads to prosperity; mere talk leads to poverty,’” Jim Condon said. “We work more than we talk.”
While the company started with 3 employees, the business now employs more than 50 people. Being a medium sized company, Jim Condon added that there’s not much overhead. The business has also adapted to newer technology introduced through the years. That’s what drew Fox News, John Condon said.
“A lot of the operations that used to be done by hand are now done by automatic machines, and I think that Manufacturing Marvels is looking at high-tech companies, newer industries with newer technology, not the low-tech hammer and chisel industries,” John Condon said.
The company creates, too. Though it orders some machinery online, engineers design much of the equipment in-house. For example, the die machine — responsible for cutting out the metal pieces of the terminal — were completely created and made in Hillsdale.
“We make our dies, which is the beginning of the process,” John Condon said. “I won’t say it’s uncommon, but we are very efficient in our die design, which helps improve the cost of the product.”
Forty-three years have passed, but the passion hasn’t, Jim Condon said. It was their dad that started it all, and it’s his passion that carries him forward.
“It’s the passion that my dad put into the business to get it going,” Jim Condon said. “The time that he spent just getting it off the ground. Back then, he was the machine operator, the accountant, the salesman. He wore all the hats at once. It brought so much joy to him to see the business grow, and to see his family take part in it, and I think that’s the passion that’s still with us.”
“We’ve carried his passion,” John Condon said, “and we hope to pass it on to the next generation.”
