Bob Hesselberth

As Bob Hesselberth grew up and graduated from Purdue University with a degree in Electrical Engineering, he developed an affliction: a fire in his belly that would only be controlled by starting and running a company of his own.

While designing two-way radio transmitters at General Dynamics and later Harris Corporation, he earned an MBA degree at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business. He then moved to a new, start-up, commercial division of Harris as the Sales Manager, where he built from scratch and managed a national network of manufacturers’ sales representatives to call on industrial and government customers.

In 1972, he left Harris to found Spectracom Corporation.

After three years in his basement, designing mistakes and selling his consulting services to other electronics companies to mitigate the effects of poverty on his wife and three small children, he moved out of the basement and introduced Spectracom’s first products.

For the next 25 years, he built Spectracom into the premier provider of time synchronization systems for 9-1-1 dispatch centers, and frequency control equipment for municipal and commercial two-way radio systems.

In 2000, Spectracom Corporation was sold to a venture capital company, and Hesselberth retired.

He lives with his wife, Marianne, and writes his blog in western New York and Florida. He has written a memoir about his entrepreneurial and other adventures. Spectracom is now owned by the French company, Orolia, manufacturing time and frequency products for international markets.