Fig. 13 Kleinschmidt Laboratories, Inc. Portable TT-4 Tactical Page Printer
Fig. 14 Kleinschmidt Laboratories, Inc. AN/FGC-20 Fixed-Station Teletypewriter Set
Preliminary work toward manufacturing, drawings, ordering of production machinery, special tools, standard parts, and other items was carried on at the Braeside laboratory.
The efforts of all of the people of the Kleinschmidt organization, working with great enthusiasm and wonderful cooperation, sometimes around the clock, were rewarded when on April 17, 1950, preproduction samples of light-weight teletypewriter sets were delivered on schedule to the Signal Corps in Fort Monmouth for approval and acceptance. Immediately upon receipt of their approval, production began on the contract awarded in June of 1949.
Kleinschmidt Laboratories subsequently received contracts and built thousands of their teleprinters, including the filling of orders for the AN/FGC-20 fixed station teleprinters (see [fig. 14]).
Later, the Laboratories, together with the Automatic Electric Company, then of Chicago, now of Northlake, Ill., designed and built switching apparatus and set up high-speed, 100-words-per-minute, automatic teleprinter switching centers for the Military. These systems had trunk switching controls located at key distributing points in the United States and abroad, interconnected by microwave circuitry.
As further orders for teleprinters and associated equipment came along, manufacturing facilities were expanded into more building area; additions to the first unit brought that building to 200 × 500 feet. Another building, 250 × 350 feet, of special design to house belt-line apparatus assembly and parts storage, also testing, inspection, and shipping, was erected in 1958.
In August, 1956, Kleinschmidt Laboratories merged with Smith-Corona Inc., on an exchange-of-shares basis, which eventually gave Kleinschmidt Laboratories’ shareholders 60 shares of Smith-Corona (later Smith-Corona Marchant Inc., and then SCM Corporation) stock for one share of Kleinschmidt Laboratories’. Bud Mead was elected a director and a member of the executive committee. Later, he became vice president of operations. When Smith-Corona merged with Marchant Calculators, Inc. (June, 1958), he was made executive vice president; then, in October of 1960, he was named president of Smith-Corona Marchant Inc. (now known as SCM Corporation).