AB&T History

That was when an energetic Westinghouse engineer in Pittsburgh, Fank Conrad, pioneered the first public radio broadcast from his living room, playing phonograph songs for his neighbors who listened on homemade radios. As his broadcast gained popularity, the president of Westinghouse convinced the engineer to move the broadcast to the company’s rooftop in exchange for better equipment and a stronger signal. Westinghouse stated making radios for the larger audience and the radio industry was born. That radio station, KDKA, is still broadcasting and is the oldest operating ratio station in the country.

As radios became popular in Pittsburgh in the 1920’s, a huge demand for radio parts materialized. At about this time, Emmer J Tydings became stranded without money while in Pittsburgh on a sales trip. The company he worked for shut down overnight, falling victim to the Depression. With a vendor willing to supply him, Tydings set up shop there selling radio parts directly to the public to survive.

As the business thrived in the 30’s, it became the Tydings Electronics Co., and was reported to have grown to become the “largest electronics parts distributor east of the Mississippi” until after WWII when Tydings sold the company. Many a manufacturer rep traveled form Washington, DC, NYC, Philadelphia and beyond to sell radio parts to Tydings Electronics.

In 1947, when Tydings’ son Dick returned from WWII, with a wife in tow and baby on the way, he came to his father to get a referral for a sales position in electronics. Dick secured a job with the rep firm Morris Taylor Company, a major supplier to Tydings Electronics. In 1963, Dick branched out to form AB&T Sales with partner Hal Blumenstein (thus the “B&T” name roots) to take advantage of growing sales in the nascent HiFi business (later the Consumer Electronics or “CE” business) that Morris Taylor Co. thought was merely a passing fad.

Early on, AB&T had two big product hits with Harmon Kardon and Dynaco, two titans of the early HiFi industry. With new vendors like Maxell audio/video and HiGain CB’s, the firm grew larger in the late 60’s.

Starting in the 70’s, big name vendors like Sanyo, Panasonic, Sharp, Magnavox, Akai, NEC and others contributed to a long growth period that lasted into the 80’s.

Eventually Dick retired in 1979 and turned the company reigns over to his then partner, Milt Deines, who continued to successfully grow the company. The next big change came along when Maxell added Floppy Disk to it’s A/V media line. Retail sales of the floppy disk grew visible enough by 1982 to prompt an unknown software company named VisiCorp to contact Maxell for advice on getting their VisiCalc spreadsheet software program out to dealers. AB&T brought VisiCorp on as a product line just as it was emerging to become the catalyst in fueling the PC as a general business tool. From that initial success, AB&T dove deeper into PC and peripheral products sales. With lines like Intel, Maxell, PFS and others, by 1987 the computer peripherals division matched the consumer electronics division in annual sales.

Many changes have taken place over the last two decades at AB&T, most notably, the dramatic consolidation of the dealer base in both consumer electronics and computer products. AB&T responded early to those changes in 1994 by writing a new business plan to grow nationally and consolidate the rep business in lock-step with the retail industry. In 1995 AB&T was the first electronics rep firm to undertake a national expansion plan by buying up other small rep firms across the U.S. AB&T’s “Best Foot Forward” strategy kept us focused on expanding successfully only when the opportunity was right.

Ultimately, AB&T purchased firms in Florida, Georgia, Texas, California and Minnesota. With more successes than failures, the whole of AB&T quickly became far more powerful that the sum of its parts. This is one of the primary reasons that AB&T still exist today while the majority of our competitors have gone out of business. Our legacy of servicing hundreds of “Mom & Pop Shops” in the Mid-Atlantic region morphed into servicing only a few dozen national mega-accounts across the nation.

AB&T’s decades of accumulated experience also led to the formation of new business units to take advantage of opportunities emerging in the industry in the 90’s. The first, AB&T Telecom, was deliberately formed as a follow up to our SoHo warranty contracts business at retailers with GE in the Mid-90’s (i.e., a service contract that is billed monthly for recurring revenue). In 1998 we introduced Qwest Prepaid Long Distance Calling Cards through retailers like Circuit City, CompUSA and SuperValue Grocery Stores. However, when we called on the Office Superstores for these products, they suggested that we look at offering other business oriented telecom services.

Ironically, our response to the retailers’ request led ultimately to AB&T introducing telecom services not through retailers, but instead through a dedicated agent partner “channel” that had roots similar to our past experience of selling computer products through VAR’s and System Integrators. Now AB&T Telecom is one of the fastest growing telecom master agencies in the business, attracting over 300 resellers nationwide with over 30 carriers and service providers and private label services of our own.

The “next big thing” at AB&T was the launch of PRI, our design, licensing, and foreign sourcing and supply chain management company based out of Richmond, VA and Shanghai, China. With multiple US offices, our PRI operations synchronize sourcing and supply chain management for US partners seamlessly from across the world in Shanghai through our Richmond offices. PRI has re-engineered the role of middle-man-facilitator to a far more efficient level by creating a model that eliminates every last unnecessary layer of cost. PRI’s hyper-efficient direct sourcing-supply chain model (we call it “speed sourcing”) fills a major void that tier-1 brands and foreign “buying offices” can’t address for national retailers. PRI supplies some of the biggest names in retail electronics in the US. and more can be learned on our website at www.prispeedsource.com.

Today, with 30 direct employees, and hundreds of indirect agents, AB&T stands alone as a long term, profitable and diversified company with operating divisions in Telecom, Asian Sourcing/Supply Chain management and Manufacturer Rep businesses. With 7 offices in the US, China and Mexico, we share a common back office structure and management team with decades of experience to support all business units. Each business unit has a familiar Technology and/or Retail Channel sales focus and each operates under its own P&L and management team for maximum efficiency. AB&T looks forward to its 50th anniversary when we are the largest Rep Firm, Telecom Master Agency and Direct Import electronics firm in the world.