Ken Kelly
1. Jane and Ken Kelly 2. Factory in China
3. Vintage Hardware Store, Port Towsend, WA.
Now, at my age and experiences, I can say that life has been
an interesting life ride thus far. Being one of the “kids from acrossthe tracks” who walked to school and often did not have lunch money,
a hunger grew in more than just one place.
Joined the Air Force directly from graduation. Gave me lots of travel
and a bit of danger here and there. But, it taught me the world. After
discharge...attended SJCC and SJS. Afterwards...being
fed-up with anti-this and anti-that...went to Scotland for nearly 8 years and learned the true
antique business. I became an exporter of Scottish antiques. Then
traded that antique business for a brass foundry which I tried to open in CA but was
re-buffed by Cal-Osha...So, I exported the foundry to Taiwan where I opened that
small foundry in the 80s. I hired a neat Tawianese girl as my secretary
and she eventually became my partner for life. You know how hard it is to find
really GOOD secretaries eh ? We have two lovely daughters
who are the real joy of life. Both daughters have graduated from our Seattle
University.... (Udub for WA folks).
In 1995, I had an opportunity to open a factory in China. (pix)
We moved the Taiwan factory to China and have been there ever since.
We also changed our home base from the San Jose
area in 2004 to Port Townsend, WA.
We built our business building in Port Townsend (pix) for our line of mail order products. We also opened a museum for American Art Deco
Lighting which is the only museum dedicated to American Deco Lighting
that exists in the world today. You can find us here. http://www.vintagehardware.com/main-vintage-lighting.php
Future: We are building a proto-type shop now to bring some
manufacturing back to America. It is like that old guy who buys a corvette.
Except, this old guy likes manufacturing and the great peoples'
lives that it can affect in a positive way.
And oh yes....I do
have lunch money now every day. What a ride !!