In 1998, Gentex Chairman and CEO Fred Bauer was named Michigan's Master Entrepreneur of the Year by the accounting firm of Ernst & Young. The following provides a brief overview of his career and entrepreneurial spirit.

After working his way through Michigan State University and obtaining a degree in business and electronics, Fred Bauer started his first factory at the age of 23 - without ever having seen a production line.

Simicon, as it was called then, manufactured sophisticated electronic furnace control units, the need for which Fred identified while observing his father's growing furnace business. The product incorporated photoelectric sensors that would prove to be a source of continued innovation in Fred's future business endeavors.

Within a few short years, Simicon attracted the attention of the industry's larger players, and in the early '70s, was snapped up by Fortune 500 giant Robertshaw Controls. Armed with fresh business acumen, photoelectric sensing knowledge and capital, Fred shifted his focus to fire protection products. He had long thought there was a need for better smoke detection, and in 1974, founded Gentex and co-invented the world's first dual-cell photoelectric smoke detector. It quickly revolutionized the industry because it was less prone to false alarms and was designed to quickly detect slow, smoldering fires.

Gentex went public in 1981, in part to help fund a new and precarious venture - developing automatic-dimming rearview mirrors. Fred knew that automakers had been looking for some 20 years for a way to make nighttime driving safer by eliminating dangerous rearview mirror glare. His instinct also told him that his expertise in electronics and electro-optical sensing technologies held the key.

In 1982, the Company introduced the world's first electromechanical (motorized) auto-dimming mirror. It was quickly adopted by Ford and General Motors, who in just three short years were purchasing over 200,000 units annually.

But Fred wasn't satisfied. He teamed up with research chemists and electrical engineers to achieve what many in the scientific community thought was impossible. In 1987, they brought a 50-year-old scientific phenomena out of the laboratory and into the automobile with the introduction of the world's first electrochromic mirror. An entire industry was born.

Today, Fred and Gentex's world-class R&D team continue to advance electro-optics and the science of electrochromics. The Company's goal is to leverage its proprietary technology and core competencies to meet consumer needs in new and exciting ways.

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