Rebuilder Of The Century: Koltunovsky Represents Tenacity, Innovation By Traci Matt This month will no doubt produce a plethora of “Person of the Century” covers on magazines around the world. Celebrities, business tycoons, and be- nevolent souls from all walks of life will be honored as someone without whom the world would have been a different place during the 1900s. But how are these stars chosen from among the millions who have made contributions to mankind? As the final Electrical Rebuilder’s Exchange of the century hits your mail- boxes, we want to honor a man who has made mighty contributions to this industry. We do this not to single him out as the most significant, but rather the most representative. Rebuilding over the past decade has been marked by people with a resolute drive to suc- ceed in business by creating a quality product and providing a needed ser- vice. From Rayloc—to the smallest of the small—77-year-old Earnest A. Richardson, who quietly makes his contribution from a one-man shop in Simi Valley, CA, all have made a dif- ference. Our “Rebuilder of the Century” is Morris Koltunovsky, founder of Atlan- tic Generator Service, Inc. in Hallandale, FL. Like many others, Koltunovsky has spent the 20th cen- tury making the trip from unpaid ap- prentice to successful inventor and businessman. His journey began in his birthplace, Lebanon, where as a young boy in the 1920s he was exposed to “winding” through a political refugee who received help from his father. “My father helped a man open an electrical shop. I used to watch him wind armatures from a window, be- cause it was a secret how to connect wire to the commutator,” he said. “This guy never wanted to show it to me. But finally I saw how he wound and soon I could wind them, too. But he never showed me how to put the wires on the armatures. So I went to another place and told them I could wind armatures but didn’t know how to put the wires on. I worked there for six months but they still never showed me how to put the wires on the commuta- tor. It was a secret!” Koltunovsky spent his teen years traveling from job to job as an unpaid apprentice soaking up all the knowl- edge he could. Then at age 20 he opened his own shop in Israel. In 1945 he came to the U.S. to join family and take a shot at the “great opportunity” to learn more about re- building. After three days in the U.S. he bought a lathe, a drill and a com- pressor and opened up a shop in his yard in Brooklyn, NY. “Tn those days, there were no re- built exchange units available. People brought their cars in and I’d try to see what was wrong with it and fix the item and put it back. It was then that I found out how to rebuild regulators. I was the first one in the United States re- building regulators. To this day, I still inquire about this and am told, prior to the 1950s, there wasn’t anyone re- building regulators,” he said. Originally in the auto electric busi- ness everything was repaired, includ- ing the magneto, horn, starter, regula- tor and generator. He said the indus- try then evolved into specialization in starters and generators, and on to DECEMBER, 1999 where it is today with the exchange basis, which includes auto parts stores and retail chains. In 1959 Koltunovsky moved to Florida and opened Atlantic Genera- tor Service. It was then that he began to get serious about shop efficiency rates. “To remake one armature would take three or four hours. I said there has to be an easier way. I began work on equipment to make the job go faster,” he said. “I started to think about making new armatures rather than re- building them. I started to make my own dies and finally make my first ar- mature. But nobody wants to buy them. They like rebuilts. And I was making brand new ones that I sold for $29 while the rebuilts went for $55 or $65. I went to the big companies and they tell me my new armature’s no good! But I started advertising and little by little they started buying it. You know, by the time you clean an old armature you could make five new ones.” Koltunovsky said the person most important to the electrical rebuilding industry was Al Mansfield, founder of IPM, who supplied catalogs, compo- nent parts and complete units to rebuilders. This is how the industry got cores and eventually moved into mass production. Koltunovsky was the first to mass manufacture new heavy-duty replace- ment armatures. He also invented a machine to mass-produce hair pin coils, twisting machines, and tooling and winding machines. Unfortunately, he never had his inventions patented. “Others took my inventions, had them patented, and made a lot of money on my inventions. Ihave always been an inventor and innovative in the industry, but with the thoughts of help- Page 1 of 2