Electronic Specifier Design Magazine, October 2023: Wearables & Automotive
At the beginning of September, I paid a visit to a small town called Thief River Falls.
Thief River Falls, sometimes referred to as Thief River or TRF, is a city in the northwest portion of Minnesota.
Taking its name from the falls of the Red Lake River, which loosely translated means ‘stolen-land river’ or ‘thieving-land river’, the city has a population of just 8,674 (as of the 2021 consensus).
Thief River is home to one of the largest electronics distributors in North America – DigiKey.
In 1972, Dr. Ronald A. Stordahl's passion for ham radio ignited the inception of the company. He embarked on assembling and marketing digital electronic keyer kits to fellow ham radio enthusiasts, enabling them to transmit radiotelegraph messages. This innovation was christened the Digi-Keyer.
Fast forward to today and DigiKey is now a multi-billion-dollar distributor with 5,000+ employees, 2,400+ suppliers, 929,000 customers, and 14.9 million+ products available. In 2022, the company opened its 2.2 million sq. foot Product Distribution Centre expansion (PDCe), one of the largest warehouses in North America.
Whilst I was there, I got a chance to explore the new warehouse and get a feel for how such a successful company operates out of such a unique location.
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Thank you for visiting the Electronic Specifier Design magazine. We hope you find the content useful in your endeavours.
Paige West, Managing Editor
