Electronic Assembly Products (EAP)

Kendall Motorsports

UPDATED 12/28/10

This page is setup to tell you a little about Brad Kendall...the husband and father, the businessman, and the racer. Below is a mini biography and information about my great family. Click on the links above to learn more about my company and my hobby.

My first priority and most important thing to me is my family. My wife Jamie (married in 1990), my son Austin (1995) and daughter Kayla (1999) are the core of my life. Austin loves music and playing video games as well as racing his Quarter Midgets (apple does not fall far from the tree!) Kayla loves to figure skate, dancing, singing, and just plain entertaining! They are both very good kids and very good students in school. Jamie and I are very active in their lives. Brad spends a lot of time working with Austin on racecars and learning to be a better racer. Brad is also the Rookie Director at the Toledo USAC .25 Quarter Midget club (NWOQMRA) and works closely with the new drivers. Jamie spends a lot of time with Kayla to improve her ice skating and all sorts of music lessons lessons.

Jamie works for the Manchester Schools as a Para-pro working with special needs children. She spent over 15 years as a daycare provider, the last 7 of those with her own center, Jamie's Daycare. But when Kayla started 1st grade, Jamie decided she needed a break from working at home. She wanted to get out and be amongst adults. Jamie is also a Tastefully Simple Consultant. She enjoys putting on the shows/parties and presenting her products to clients.

Professionally, I am a partner in Electronic Assembly Products (EAP) with ownership of the Michigan branch. EAP is a Manufacturers' Representative firm representing products for the electronics assembly industry. More specifically we sell equipment and supplies used for building printer circuit boards and final assemblies of electronic products. My career in electronics started when I was in 9th grade and took my first electronics class. I then spent 2 years in vocational school for electronics. After that I completed my Associates Degree in Digital Electronics at Washtenaw Community College. With a desire to accomplish more, I transferred to Eastern Michigan University and completed my Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Technology. I was not a full time student though. During college I worked first at Murray's Discount Auto, but then found a job at Computrol as an Electronics Technician. After a short time at Computrol I found a job as a PCB/Mechanical CAD designer at XYCOM in Saline, MI. After 3 years in design, I moved into manufacturing and became a Manufacturing Engineer at XYCOM. I worked some in cable and harness assembly and final assembly before finding my home in circuit board assembly. My expertise evolved in the are of printed circuit board assembly where I was able to improve processes, shorten changeover, improve quality, and work with design to improve design for manufacturability. I also became certified as an internal ISO 9000 auditor. In 1995 my last major accomplishment at XYCOM was implementing Ball Grid Array (BGA) Technology in September of 1995. BGA was brand new, cutting edge technology in 1995.

In 1996 I accepted a position at Hella Electronics as a Manufacturing Engineer. Hella is a German company involved in many industries related to automotive and building trades. The electronics division was building an new OEM electronics facility in Plymouth, MI to support the American automotive industry. When I hired...we had a grass field with a sign on it! My job was to help layout the manufacturing area for printed circuit board production. This was a very exciting and challenging job! In November of 1996 we broke ground and in November of 1997 we started production! The building consisted of 70,000 square feet of office and lab space along with the 37,000 square foot electronics manufacturing plant. We were running production electronics for Volkswagon, BMW, and Mercedes. While at Hella I became a certified internal auditer in QS 9000 Automotive quality standards. The start up was fun, but once we were running, it was high volume low mix. There was just not enough cutting edge engineering to keep my interest. I needed a change.

For the last few years as an engineer I had aspirations of getting into sales. So in November or 1999 the opportunity presented itself to go into the rep business. I accepted a position with REStronics Midwest as a Sales Engineer. Covering E. Michigan and N. Ohio, I developed relationships and offered more then just a salesman to my clients, I offerred another set of engineering eyes. Having done the job that all my clients are having to do, I understand what they go through day in and day out and what it takes to do the job. While at REStronics I won several sales awards including Representative of the Year and Most New Accounts opened. After 5 successful years at REStronics and living through the incredible downturn in the electronics industry, I was looking to expand a little more. The electronics industry here in the USA is just a shell of what it once was. With the cheap labor in Mexico and China (and other offshore markets), the industry was moving out. The market today is about 25% of what it was in the 90's. In 2005 I made that move to expand a little more. I became a partner in EAP. John Johnson (another former REStronics employee) had started EAP a few years earlier and the company had grown to include John's wife Autumn and Kevin Moses (EAPII in Indiana). The next step in the EAP growth was to expand into Michigan. I opened the Michigan office and became part owner of the company. So far the move has been successful and the company is doing well. I now cover all of Michigan and still have N. Ohio. My customer base has not changed other then growing a little. I am still calling on the same customer, just with different brands of product. I still offer the best customer service I can offer and an added pair or engineering eyes. I read every technical article and sit in on every technical presentation I can even today. I need to stay as informed as my customer is if I want to be a valuable asset to my customer.

The last part of my life is racing cars. My love for racing is deep rooted as my father was a long time drag racer and has 75 trophies from his days in the car. He wanted me to go into drag racing, but after years of watching drag racing, I wanted the race to last longer then a few seconds. Living close to Michigan International Speedway, we have always gone to the NASCAR races at MIS. I have always dreamed of driving one of those things. Then I went to a dirt track and thought that was the coolest thing to see those cars sliding around that track throwing dirt. So I decided to try it, and the rest is history.

I raced Dirt Track Stockcars for 17 years. With 84 total wins under my belt and just a few hair raising crashes, I had a lot of fun. But now...the torch has been passed. Austin is starting his 5th year in Quarter Midget racing. We have really enjoyed the racing and the experiences. Our NWOQMRA Toledo club joined the .25 USAC family of clubs in 2009 and we are having more fun then ever before. We raced 34 weekend, signing in for 68 events in 2010! More on that at the Kendall Racing website. This coming year will be Austin's last year in Quarter Midgets as he will turn 16 in March and is getting too big for these little cars.