25 Years of SpecSys Inc.

March 15, 2022 by Erica

This month we are celebrating 25 years of becoming a full service provider of project management, contract engineering and manufacturing. Over the past quarter century, we have been working side-by-side with OEMs to develop new and manufacture existing products that impact their bottom line. Whether it's a complete turn-key design, or individual project phases, SpecSys has become your one-stop source!

How Specialty Systems Got Its Start

A native of Pierre, SD, Kevin obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of MN. He began his career taking his first engineering job with TRW Inc. in Los Angeles CA, working on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM). Wanting to raise his family in the rural Midwest, Kevin and Colleen relocated to Omaha NE for TRW Inc., working on the Air Force command center (where President Bush was taken in 9/11). Later leaving TRW, moving to Madison SD, Kevin engaged in his first mobile equipment design position for ROSCO Mfg, working with mobile asphalt equipment. Kevin is especially proud of bringing custom design control systems to the mobile equipment market, long before any were available from vendors. After a few years with ROSCO Mfg, Kevin accepted a management position with Tyler Industries of Benson MN. During these years the expansion of GPS and electronic controls in agriculture was just getting started and Kevin was often a keynote speaker at international attended conferences on application of such technology. It was at Tyler that Kevin learned much of his fundamental business beliefs by way of the Tyler owner and a senior management team that mentored him, all while acquiring an executive MBA from the University of St. Thomas. Knowing that Tyler Ind. was being positioned to be sold, and realizing this meant a Fortune 500 owner, Kevin liked the entrepreneur culture of private ownership and set out starting his own engineering business. March 25, 1997, Kevin set up in the sun room of their Montevideo home. He began with nothing but a computer, a phone and the support of his wife, Colleen. Throughout the years there have been many ups and downs, two MN River floods, the dot com crash, great recession, 9/11 and COVID. Eventually the persistence and determination grew Specialty Systems (SpecSys) manufacturing and engineering to what we’ve all come to know. SpecSys continues to provide opportunities for those who want to live in rural communities and still have a profession that offers them big city opportunities.