Aurora woman was 2nd employee hired at ISSI
Exactly 50 years ago this week Carol Schenk accepted the late Cliff Williams’ offer to come to work for a new tech-based company he had just established in Aurora. A lot has changed over that five-decade span at the Grant Street company, including the name of the business itself. As of Monday Schenk decided it was time for her to make a change as well, officially shifting gears into retirement.
“I kept saying that working 30 years sounded pretty good, but everything just kept going,” Schenk shared of the timing of her decision to retire from Aurora Boardworks. “It’s been 50 years now and I’m 70, so I think that 50 is God’s plenty.”
The veteran employee sat down to reflect on a career that started in 1974 when Williams noticed her as a waitress in a restaurant located in the Fidelity Building on the downtown square.
“He told me to apply out here and I did, so I was the second person to work here,” she recalled. “They had a production supervisor who trained me and the two of us worked here together for quite a while. I was doing a lot of everything because it was just the two of us, so whatever needed to be done, if I didn’t know what I was doing then she would train me. We worked together and got stuff out the door.”
In the early days of International Sensor Systems Inc. (ISSI), Schenk said much of the electronic chip production work was done for Plectron, based in Lexington.
“We would put the die on our ceramic parts and then we would wire bond them and coat them,” she explained. “It was an integrated circuit sort of thing. Then we proceeded into doing some of the hand soldering stuff that would go on the parts. We had the different gold and silver conductors that we put on and the goal would be to create a circuit board. It was all just very interesting work.”
Asked about the various changes in technology, procedures and co-workers she faced over the years, Schenk said recalled that it was all just part of a progression.
“We started with the lower things and then it got bigger and bigger,” she noted. “We started doing circuit boards and then we were doing a combination of just about everything.”
At one point some of the primary products involved components that ended up in digital wristwatches, which were very popular at the time.
“When they first came out we were doing a lot of the round circuit boards,” she said. “We would send those off I believe to California. For whatever reason, we did a lot with California and Texas.”
Schenk knew where a lot of the ISSI products were being shipped because for many years she worked in the shipping department as well. At some point the company got big enough that her focus involved the hands-on aspects of making the products, rather than shipping them.
“Over the years I’ve just learned to kind of go with the flow,” she said. “If they want me to do this thing instead of that thing, I can do whatever. I’ve talked to them now (going into retirement) that if they get swamped with something and they need somebody I can come in for a little bit to get stuff out. I’m game, because I don’t have anything that I’m going to be doing that’s pressing at home.”
A native of Central City, Schenk moved to Aurora after graduating from high school and has lived and worked here since that time.
“I do a lot of my work under the microscope and that’s harder to learn,” she said in a 2023 ANR interview at the time the company name change was announced. “To me it’s very interesting because it’s always challenging. We’re always getting something new in here.”
Having an employee who is well versed in all aspects of hands-on production, and one who is willing to learn new things, is valued and very much appreciated in today’s workforce, according to company president and CEO Gary Bales.
“It’s hard for me to imagine anyone working for one company for 50 years, so the fact that Carol has done just that is amazing to me,” Bales said. “Carol is certainly one of the most committed, faithful, and dependable employees I’ve ever known. She’s highly skilled, and she’s performed just about every task you can imagine in our business at one time or another. Whenever we’ve needed an extra effort to get product out the door on time or to resolve a customer issue, more times that not it’s been Carol who rises to the occasion to get the job done.”
Bales said Schenk has seen a lot of changes over the years, and she’s been able to adapt well throughout her career.
“She’s an inspiration to me, and undoubtedly many others in our organization,” he added. “Our company certainly would not be what it is today without Carol’s invaluable contribution.”