Silicon Valley component assembly company expands into Morgan Hill

Golden State Assembly hopes to hire up to 600 by the end of the year

Published in the May 17 – May 30, 2017 issue of Gilroy Life

By Marty Cheek

When Golden State Assembly needed a place to grow its operations, it first considered building a new facility in Modesto or Manteca. Executives at the Fremont-based component assembly company looked around the Bay Area and soon realized the former Alien Technology building in Morgan Hill made an excellent fit as a place to locate a new factory closer to their Silicon Valley customer base.

GSA President Cesar Madrueno and the company’s staff opened the doors April 25 to welcome leaders of Morgan Hill’s city government and business community. The day marked the 10th year anniversary of the company’s founding, so the occasion was an extra special celebration in the company’s moving into the 82,000-square-foot building located on Butterfield Boulevard. Visitors toured through open space of future offices and saw workers putting wires into cable harnesses in spacious assembly rooms.

Madrueno explained how GSA has plans to expand its Morgan Hill Operations from 22 employees now working at the location to between 120 and 180 in three to four months. Based on how GSA’s customer market needs grow in 2017, the facility might have by the end of the year as many as 560 to 600 employees.

Last year, GSA made the decision to not only assemble but also build the components its customers need. The Morgan Hill facility perfectly suited GSA’s upgraded business model, said Matt Buscher, president and CEO of LaptopsAnytime. GSA assembles its automated checkout kiosks for people to rent laptop computers. Buscher worked with Edith Ramirez, the city’s economic development director, to get GSA through the hurdles of buying the empty Alien Technology building and turning it into an assembly and manufacturing center. The business climate and location in Morgan Hill was also a factor in setting up a factory in the city, he said.

“It’s a cross-commute for a lot of our employees so that’s a fantastic thing,” he said.

The company hopes to bring in workers from not only Morgan Hill but Gilroy, Hollister and Watsonville as well to its new site, he said.

The city of Morgan Hill’s staff made the process of getting into the building fairly smooth by cutting much of the red-tape other Bay Area cities often require companies to go through, he said. In a more bureaucratic permitting process, it would have taken an additional six months to move in.

“Morgan Hill (city staff) understands that their motive is to keep people working and prosper their city and they do everything they can,” he said. “If you need something done, they’re responsive and get it done.”

The culture of Morgan Hill, compared to Fremont, has a small-town feel with plenty of excellent after-hours entertainment for GSA workers, he said.

“In the last 10 years, I’ve seen Morgan Hill grow. You’ve got the restaurants, you’ve got shopping,” he said. “I think that’s a key to having a good base so when we as CEOs bring in someone to work in an environment, we want that environment to be conducive. And we can use that as an inducement to get employees as well.”

With aspirations of being a businessman, Madrueno moved to the United States from Mexico when he was 19. After attending college he found a job with Santa Clara-based Agilent Technologies and worked there for many years, dreaming of building his own company one day. At his wife’s urging in 2007 he started GSA. He kept working the next five years on the grave-yard shift at Agilent to ensure money was available to grow his new enterprise.

Assembling components for medical and solar companies, his company grew quickly. Tesla Motors is an important customer, making up about 22 percent of its base revenue. GSA makes customized cable harnesses for its electric cars. The company hopes that if it wins a bid from Tesla for the new Model 3 car, it will be able to double its manpower needs at the Morgan Hill site. One incentive for Tesla is that Morgan Hill is near its factory, reducing any shipping issues for the components GSA builds.