It’s rare to find the “perfect fit” in your career on the first try. However, for Andy LeVesque, Principal Electrical Engineer at Gentex, the company has been a match since the beginning and has evolved alongside his career over four decades.
As a young engineering graduate, he started at Gentex in 1983, moving to West Michigan from Menominee, Michigan, 50 miles north of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
“I started out as a Gentex production line electronics technician, repairing Amgard Door Alarms that Gentex built for Amway in the 1980s,” he said.
After a few months of working on the line, he transferred to the Electrical Engineering team. “At the time, Gentex was a much smaller organization. With the addition of me to the team, the total number of people in the Gentex Electrical Engineering department was three.”
“You knew everyone who worked here back then. The pizza parties and Christmas parties were a lot of fun.”
While the smoke detector and alarm business was moving ahead, Gentex’s entry into the automotive market with the original auto-dimming mirror marked a shift for the company – and for Andy’s career.
“It was 1987 when I remember seeing some of the first electrochromic mirror prototypes. I did some testing on the first electrochromic cells. A year or so after that, Gentex’s growth really took off. It’s been quite a ride since then,” said Andy.
“The first year I worked here, the company had sales of about $3.5 million. Now, Gentex is a $2 billion company,” he said. “The growth has been crazy.”
Andy’s role at the company evolved over time, as well.
“As Gentex grew, my knowledge and responsibilities grew too. I went from working in production, to being an Electrical Engineer, and then a Chief Electrical Engineer,” he said.
Eventually, Andy became the Director of Electrical Development. He had Hardware Design, PCB Design, Embedded Software, Component Engineering, and EMC Lab all reporting to his department. However, Andy realized that the director role was not quite the right fit for him at the time.
“After a few years in that position, I realized that my passion was more on the technical side than management,” he said. “It was a little over five years ago that I told my boss at the time, ‘Hey, I'm going to retire in five years.’ So that kicked off me moving into more of a mentor role, than a manager role.”
In his current role, he works with new Gentex products and engineers to optimize manufacturability as well as ensuring that products pass testing requirements on the first try.
“I appreciate the company’s can-do culture. Gentex is truly unique with our in-house expertise in so many technical disciplines. I’ve learned so much working here over the years,” said Andy.
The learning has extended to his family, as well – all three of Andy’s sons spent time at Gentex. Ben interned in the Electrical Engineering Department and went on to become a Chief Engineer at Oshkosh Defense. Steve interned with the Gentex Vision group, and now works in Regulatory Engineering at Stellantis. Joe, who took on a summer help job at EA, also went into a STEM field and received his doctorate as a pharmacist from Ferris State.
“People ask me, ‘Why did you stay so long?’ I tell them, well, Gentex isn't the same Gentex that it was in 1984, working here has been like catching a great wave, and then riding the crest of it for as long as you can.”
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