Life in England
Ron Witherspoon was born in England, and at the age of 15 he graduated high school in the top of his class. Because of this he was selected by English Electric & Napiers to start an apprenticeship in Mechanical Engineering. During is apprenticeship he gained experience in turning, milling and grinding production processes.
In the 2nd year he was transferred to Napiers where he worked on the assembly and tooling for Rolls Royce Avon jet engines.
During the third year of his apprenticeship he was assigned to the toolroom, a highly desirable position, since the best craftsmen in Napiers worked in that department. It was then that he learned how to design and build tools from verbal instructions, how to manufacture components to very exacting tolerances, and how to apply higher geometry and trigonometry to the manufacture of inspection equipment.
In the final two years of his apprenticeship, he was assigned to classified work on guided missiles and vertical take-off airplanes and engines. Also during this period he worked with other craftsmen on what were called "commando" assignments, which entailed going on to the shop floor to troubleshoot manufacturing and tooling problems and fixing them on-the-spot.
In 1963, Ron took a job at Rolls Royce.
America
The opportunity to emigrate arrived early in 1967, when a local newspaper ran an advertisement for jobs in America. Ron and Monica traveled to Manchester, England for job interviews. During one interview they met with representatives from General Electric, Jet Engine Division from Schenectady, New York State. With Ron's background in the new technologies he had mastered while working on the jet engines, plus his level of security clearance, he was hired.
Ron arrived in America April 1967, with Monica and their two young children arriving six weeks later. After a short time with GE, Ron accepted a position with IBM as a Mechanical Engineer, in San Jose, California. He spent two years at IBM making tools, jigs, fixtures and gauges for read & write heads for disk drives, special tooling for the coating of disks, and alignment tools for heads.
In 1969, Ron left to take a position at Image Products, a subsidiary of Memorex, working on fiber optic printers and high-speed mechanical belt printers.
Teaching
In 1970, Ron was asked to teach night classes at San Jose City College in Machining and Engineering. In 1971 he was asked to teach both day and night classes in Machine Technology. He taught classes there through 1984, becoming fully tenured.
Each summer, Ron took jobs with a companies in Silicon Valley. At the end of the summer, he was invariably offered a full-time position with that company, which he would refuse in order to resume his teaching. In 1977, he decided that he would start a business in his garage. He sold his 1964 Mustang convertible and used the proceeds to purchase his first machine tools.
RWI
In 1979 Ron began to look for more work to expand his shop. He met with Durango Systems, who was developing a desktop computer with a printer and floppy disk drive. Ron was hired to design the tooling for their new printer. His effort on that project led to more work over a two year period.
Ron incorporated on June 5, 1981 as Ron Witherspoon, Inc. (RWI). Word circulated that Ron Witherspoon had his own machine shop and other start-up companies began seeking him out. Over the next several years, he designed and manufactured a variety of components for high-tech products such as disk drives and printers. Some of his early customers included Dastek, Information Storage Systems, Digital Equipment Corporation, IBM, and Cybernex.
By 1982, RWI had enough business to warrant moving into its first building, on McGlincy Lane in Campbell, California. In June of 1984, Ron resigned his position at City College to concentrate fully on growing the business.
From 1986 to 1988, RWI was heavily involved with Seagate Technology in tooling manufacture. As the price of disc drives was starting to drop, Ron decided to transition RWI from a tooling fabricator to a combination of tooling fabricator and production shop. RWI invested in computer software and computer controlled machines for production.
He also foresaw the move of disk drive manufacturing to off-shore facilities, and decided to focus part of RWI's efforts on the production of medical components and assemblies. He began working extensively with one of these companies, and helped to design the devices that are in use today.
To support this type of manufacturing, RWI began to invest in the very latest wire EDM machines and more precise machine tools.
By 1996, RWI had acquired wire EDM machines capable of producing parts with tolerances of 40 millionths of an inch. Success with this approach came by the way of recognition by Stanford Linear Accelerator, Argonne National Labs, and the Department of Energy.
Castroville
In 2000, RWI had outgrown its facilities in Campbell. After considering a new facility in Silicon Valley, Ron decided instead to build a new manufacturing shop in Castroville, about 40 miles away. This move allowed his employees to live in an area where they could more easily afford to buy their own homes, something that was difficult for many in the Bay Area.
The company purchased a site in Castroville, just off Highway 1, midway between Monterey and Watsonville. The new facility was completed in November 2002.
Today, RWI continues to thrive. The Campbell facilities remain in use as corporate headquarters and as an engineering and R&D facility, while the Castroville site is used for production. The company now employees more than 100 people.