Progress Colorado | 2015 Business and Economic Guide – The Denver Post

John Yacoub is particularly proud that Advanced Circuits keeps jobs in the United States, has never laid off an employee, offers workers a monthly profit-sharing plan and rapidly fulfills customer orders.

“The most important thing, in my mind, is keeping jobs in the USA at a time when the manufacturing of circuit boards has migrated to China,” said Yacoub, President and CEO of Advanced Circuits. The company is based in a 110,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Aurora.

The company offers small quantity quick turn PCBs (printed circuit boards) through large-scale production manufacturing as well as assembly services. It’s ranked as the third-largest PCB fabricator in North America, with $90 million in revenue in 2014; this year, revenue projects to be between $94 million and $95 million.

“We do not outsource any of our printed circuit board manufacturing to China; we keep all of our production here in the USA. When the economy was bad and companies were laying people off to cut costs, we continued to hire.

“In fact, we’ve never had a layoff in 25 years.”

Advanced Circuits considers no PCB order too small to build, and prides itself on delivering the same quality of service to both small and large customers. This is especially important to Yacoub because in 2000, there were 1,900 circuit board manufacturers in the United States, but that number dropped to under 300 by 2014 because of competition from China.

The company’s customer base includes over 10,000 customers, 1,000 contract assemblers and thousands of engineering students. Advanced Circuits has 550 employees, with 300 of them in Colorado and others at manufacturing facilities in Tempe, AZ, and Maple Grove, MN, plus a sales office in Plaistow, NH. The company also employs outside sales representatives throughout the United States.

“We treat our employees great,” Yacoub said, citing a monthly profit sharing and a tri-annual bonus as well. “We have missed only one or two profit-sharings in the last 15 years.”

The company also strives to quickly fulfill customer orders. “If you don’t receive your PCBs on time from us, it’s free,” Yacoub said. “I don’t remember the last time we shipped anything free.”

Advanced Circuits helps students at the top 50 engineering universities by sponsoring their robotic competitions. “We provide free circuit boards for their senior engineering projects,” Yacoub said. “We have helped thousands of students in the last 15 years. Engineering students are our biggest investment for the future. As they move on to their careers, they always opt to use Advanced Circuits as their number one board supplier.”

Deloitte & Touche named Advanced Circuits one of Colorado’s 50 fastest-growing technology companies annually from 1999-2008. In 2013, the company was recognized by ColoradoBiz magazine as Colorado’s “Diversity Corporation of the Year” and chosen by the Aurora Chamber of Commerce as its “Business of the Year.” In addition, Advanced Circuits has received the Wastewater Reclamation District’s “Gold Award” 9 times over the recent years.