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February 26, 2021

Bill Lee reflects on family-run Lee Co.’s COVID-19 response, role in moon landing

PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED The Lee Co.'s industrial microhydraulics group facility in Clinton.
By Jean Falbo-Sosnovich

Making key parts in Formula One race cars, life-saving ventilators, or a famous astronauts’ breathing apparatus has been a family affair for The Lee Co. since 1948.

From its founding father — the late Leighton Lee II to his youngest son, current President and CEO Bill Lee — the Westbrook-based company is a global leader in micro hydraulics.

With more than $300 million in annual revenues, The Lee Co. employs 1,100 people in Connecticut and abroad. Anchored on 1 million square feet of manufacturing and office space in Westbrook and Essex, the company makes miniature valves, restrictors, nozzles, safety screens and flow controls for numerous industries including aerospace, automotive and medical.

For Lee, discovering early on that his family’s products actually “walked on the moon” was out of this world, and really set the bar high. That’s because when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their historic moonwalk in 1969, their oxygen packs were equipped with Lee Co. restrictors to ensure the right amount of pressure in their breathing tanks.

“My father put out a memo to company employees, saying the lives of the astronauts are really depending on us. That’s not too much pressure,” Lee quipped.

Bill Lee

Lee’s been with the company for 25 years, serving in the top spot since 2010. His first foray into the family business began when he was 16, working during the summers.

“I started out doing maintenance, washing and painting floors,” Lee said. “It provided me with a nuts and bolts understanding of the company, and I really got an appreciation for what it takes to make our parts.”

Working his way up the corporate ladder took time. Lee’s father had a rule that none of his five kids could work at the family business right out of college.

“We’ve always had the requirement of spending time employed elsewhere before joining the company, and I started my career in banking,” said Lee.

Putting his economics degree from Connecticut College and MBA in finance from the University of New Haven to work, Lee started his own consulting business, serving as a part-time chief financial officer for family-owned companies. While Lee enjoyed this, “the gravitational pull” of working for his own family led him home. He came to Lee running one of the production groups, and later moved into the role as CFO, prior to taking the top seat.

“It was always there and always calling my name,” Lee said. “It has been an incredible honor to serve the company. As the youngest, my siblings left the nest as I was growing up, and I had the opportunity to learn from my father. He was quite a teacher and had a remarkable love for his business and employees.”

Lee said he cherishes his “cadre of senior managers that don’t require much day-to-day support” enabling him time to focus on strategic issues and longer-term projects.

“That allows me to, as they say in sailboat racing, keep my head out of the boat,” Lee noted.

Gus Bateas is the vice president of enterprise supply chain management for Pennsylvania-based Triumph Group, a supplier of aerospace systems and components.

Bateas said his company’s engine control division has been using Lee parts for its aerospace needs for more than 50 years. And his interactions with Lee and his employees over the years have been nothing but smooth sailing.

“They will make the extraordinary efforts to support us,” Bateas said. “A perfect example of this is we recently had a need for help that started over a weekend. We reached out to our Lee sales engineer that Sunday. Monday we had an all-hands meeting and by Tuesday evening The Lee Company had delivered the required hardware to us. That is great customer service. Bill has done a great job leading and growing the company.”

Retooling amid pandemic

The Lee Co. had one of the nation’s first profit sharing plans, Lee said, which has provided good economic incentives to motivate employees.

“Personally, I want people to inherently want to do their best, not feel like they have to do their best,” Lee said. “We have remarkable employees and a unique culture here. My job is to keep the culture, keep us on course and keep out of the way of the people who get the jobs done.”

Getting the job done amid the COVID-19 pandemic involved some retooling efforts.

“In March and April [2020] production of airplanes and automobiles essentially ceased worldwide,” Lee said. “That wasn’t helpful for our sales. At the same time, our relatively small business supplying critical components for ventilators suddenly exploded. The whole company came together and people put their heart and souls into getting the ventilators out. We’ve made it through the worst of the pandemic without any layoffs. We are running overtime in most production areas and beginning to open up the pipeline to hire again. Both of those feel really good.”

Lee treated all 1,100 employees to restaurant gift cards to help ease some COVID stress, telling them “there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but here’s a free dinner.”

The company thrives on giving back, and to date has doled out more than $250,000 to children of Lee Co. employees through its scholarship fund.

The Guilford native and his wife of 40 years, Kate, have three children. When not working, Lee finds “any excuse to be on the water,” a love inspired by his father, who was a champion sailboat racer in between making “the world’s best” micro hydraulics.

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