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20 n e w h a v e n B I Z | M a r c h / A p r i l 2 0 1 9 n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m 'I have 50 people's lives in my hands – their families, their daily bread. It's a huge responsibility.' – Jill Bryant Mayer Y ou might think that being the fih generation of your family responsible for a business that has nur- tured and sustained you and yours, kith and kin, for more than a century would be pressure enough to last a lifetime. Or maybe five lifetimes. Actually, though, Jill Bryant Mayer puts enough pressure on herself to shepherd Bead Industries into its second century to more than outweigh the expectations of her parents, her two sisters, her husband and their two little boys — combined. e 37-year-old Mayer, who became CEO of the 105-year-old manufacturer last January, talks a lot about the weight of the respon- sibility she feels for Bead's 50-plus employees in Milford and Cheshire. "I have 50 people's lives in my hands — their families, their daily bread," Mayer says. "It's a huge responsibility." Founded in 1914 by Mayer's great-great-grandfather, Waldo Calvin Bryant, the enterprise has operated continuously through two world wars, the 1929 stock-mar- ket crash, the Great Depression, 9/11, the great recession of 2008, globalization and decline of U.S and Connecticut manufacturing. Bead Chain used to manufacture, well, bead chain — that metal chain attached to closet lights and drain plugs and sundry other household fixtures. In 1987 the company changed its name to Bead Industries to reflect its evolving refocusing on its high-growth, high-margin electronics business. The Education of Jill Mayer How a fifth-generation manufacturing CEO learned by doing — with a few hard lessons along the way By Michael C. Bingham Continued on Page 46 Bead's main facility in Milford primarily manufactures electronic contact pins. A subsidiary acquired by Bead in 1972, the McGuire Manufacturing Co. in Cheshire, produces high-end plumbing fixture trim. And yes, Bead still sells bead chain, although nowadays it is manufactured in South Korea. Despite the many changes over more than a century, Mayer is keenly conscious of "the continuity of the business: We've been around for 105 years. We're trying to keep this thing going," she says. And whether they've worked at Bead for a dozen years, like the CEO, or for four decades, like some of the workers on the shop floor, "Every- one is working for the good of the company," Mayer says, in a way that makes you think she really means it. Chain reaction Born in 1863, Waldo Calvin Bryant was a member of the gener- ation of inventors such as omas Edison, Henry Ford and Alexander Graham Bell whose innovations revolutionized daily human life. Trained as a mechanical engineer, he learned electrical engineering aer college. In 1888 Bryant was granted U.S. patent number 391,943 for the first completely enclosed electric switch, which made possible safer use of electricity in homes and businesses than existing exposed electrical switches. e following year he incorporated the Bryant Electric Co. in Bridgeport using $1,000 his parents had mort- gaged from their home. In 1901 Westinghouse Electric purchased a controlling interest in Bryant Electric, which within five years had become the largest em- ployer in Bridgeport and the largest manufacturer of wiring devices on the planet. One of Calvin Bryant's con- temporaries and associates was Harvey Hubbell, who founded the company that today bears his name and patented an electric light pull socket. Bryant Electric Co. engineers refined and patented variations of Hubbell's pull socket — one of which used beaded chain to turn an electric lamp on and off. By 1910 the beaded chain pull socket was the Bryant Electric Co.'s principal product line, and the company name would soon reflect that: On March 17, 1914, Waldo Calvin Bryant, his son Waldo Ger- ald (Gerry) Bryant and Gilbert W. Goodridge incorporated the Bead Chain Manufacturing Co. A year later the company began construc- tion of the Bridgeport factory at State and Mountain Grove streets that would be its home for nearly 90 years before Bead moved to Milford in 2003. Bead added an electronics divi- sion in the 1920s to manufacture metal contact pins for the vacuum tubes that powered radio sets that were becoming a fixture in every American household. During the following decade Bead's electronics business would diversify into pro- ducing contact pins for fluorescent lamps. At its height Bead employed 300 workers on three shis. Jill Mayer's father, Kenneth E. Bryant, didn't grow up in the family business but spent much of his life in Alaska (where Jill and her two sisters were born) before his father, W. Dexter Bryant, asked him to join the company's board of directors in 1997 as he (Dexter) pondered retirement. e following year Ken Bryant would relocate his family to Connecticut as Dexter handed him the keys as CEO, making him the fourth generation of Bryants to lead Bead. Ken Bryant navigated Bead through the turbulent transition to the 21st century, including the tidal wave of low-cost Asian competition (which his would later leverage by outsourcing bead-chain manufac- turing to South Korea), the burst of the telecom bubble in 1999 and increasingly urgent need to replace an outdated factory building and older machinery. Even as he "right- sized" Bead, relocated the company to Milford and embraced "lean" manufacturing principles and prac- tices, Ken Bryant determined that, should he ever have the opportunity to vouchsafe Bead to a fih genera- tion of Bryants, he would never just "hand over the keys" and walk out the door — as his father had done with him. Training wheels Which is why Jillian Bryant Mayer was always on the "five-year plan" — a deliberate, well-thought- out succession trajectory that began with her beginning her professional career working elsewhere before coming "home" to the family busi- ness a decade ago at age 27, now married and with two boys soon to arrive on the scene. She joined the company as finance manager (an position that was open at the time, not a sinecure — "I couldn't just go where I wanted to work," she explains) W o m e n W h o M e a n B u s i n e s s

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