Minnitron – a three generation family business

Minnitron Ltd are proud to be third generation of a local family business, based in Ramsgate, Kent and in March this year, will be celebrating 60 years in business, as one of the longest standing PCB (Printed Circuit Boards) Manufacturer’s in the UK. George Goodfellow started the business in his garden shed, in Minnis Bay, Kent. 

He was a natural entrepreneur and inventor….his hobby was to race small remote radio controlled boats and planes…they would often get damaged and were costly to repair, so he created a machine that could print miniature PCB’s. News travelled fast amongst his peers and he was in demand to fix their problems too. With his natural skills as an Engineer, he soon gained a reputation for being the ‘go to’ person and “Minnitron” was born in 1962.

The business grew rapidly and his Son, Ken Goodfellow a qualified ‘Chemical Engineer’, working for Amphenol had the right skills to join Minnitron. Ken developed the business to become a reputable manufacturer and compete with the big boys. UK Manufacturing was experiencing rapid growth in the 1980’s and Minnitron took full advantage of this and expanded the business by investing in state of the art technology  – they were then joined by his Grandson, Paul Goodfellow. 

Being a family business, Paul had grown up working in the factory and was keen to create internal systems that would enable the business to compete with overseas suppliers, who were quickly decimating the UK’s manufacturing industry…especially within Electronics. Minnitron wanted to get an edge on delivering quickly and to this day have an excellent reputation for delivering on time.  

We employ 15 local people and are part of an amazing business community within Thanet. We couldn’t be more thrilled to still be here and to be celebrating 60 years in any business is something to shout about…especially manufacturing. We feel this is a great story of resilience, pride, determination and supporting the local community.