Rockford-based Waldom Electronics enjoys 75+ years in business

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Waldom Electronics has been distributing electronic components to other distributors throughout the world for decades. The company is based in Rockford and has been in operation for more than three-quarters of a century.

“I’ve seen a lot of change over the years,” said Karen Collins, Waldom’s Director of Global Purchasing.

Collins has been with the company for over a quarter century.

“It’s a small, family-owned company. They recognize hard work. They recognize you wanting to do what’s best for the company. And in return, they return the same thing back to you, so for 26 years, it’s been that type of environment.”

The company’s leader of operations in the Americas is Roger Raley. He moved to Rockford less than a year ago to become Waldom’s Vice President and General Manager for the Americas.

He gave Eyewitness News a tour of the facility in Rockford. He said the company continues to grow in its more than 75 years in business.

“This is our primary distribution center,” Raley pointed out. “Altogether, we have about $600 million worth of inventory across our business. We’ve got a sister location in Georgetown, Ohio, that kind of mirrors this facility. What you’re looking at is a significant amount of electronic components inventory that we’re keeping out of the landfills by working with suppliers and distributors to manage their excess programs.”

“We really do business in just about every country that you can imagine. Anywhere that someone’s producing something with electronic components in it, we have the potential to do business with them,” Raley said.

Essentially, Waldom takes in the extra inventory that other distributors don’t need. Either they over-bought, or inventory has sat on shelves for years.

“We bring it back. We inspect it, make sure that it’s the original packaging, the original parts, that there’s good integrity and pedigree for counterfeit mitigation. We stock it and we make it available to sell to about 2,700 distributors globally,” Raley said.

The company has about 110 team members in its Rockford facility. Most run the operations on out the floor with about 200,000 square feet to cover in Rockford alone. Globally, Waldom stocks over five billion unique components and over 200,000 SKUs.

Raley says most people don’t realize the impact the company has on its industry.

“When I moved here, one of the things that I recognized is that people just don’t know who we are. We’ve been in the community for about 75 years. As I’ve had the opportunity to bring in folks from the chamber or from local government, they walk in and they look at it and they’re shocked that there’s this much distribution happening here and this much product stocked in this facility,” he said.

Collins said the impact Waldom has had on her life is hard to measure. She said, even after 26 years with the company, she looks forward to what the future holds.

“I look forward to all the growth and opportunities that Waldom still has for us today,” she said.