Alaska Airlines Magazine
July 1999  Tom Singel

Making Time Count

On an early 1960s visit to his homeland, James Kilburg, an eccentric Luxembourg ¨¦migr¨¦, was rousted at 2 a.m. by his wife, on the phone from California. For the inventive it was a wake-up call in more ways than one: He decided that what the world needed, besides uninterrupted sleep, was a device displaying the current time anywhere on the map.

Within 12 months, Kilburg¡¯s skilled hands had created the Geochron, expan-ding his portfolio of more than 20 patented inventions (among them, the cherry pitter and the popout car cigarette lighter) and launching a time-date masterpiece now in its fourth decade.

The Geochron, perhaps best described as functional wall sculpture, is a dramatic 2-foor-by3foot global map/chronometer, framed with wood and encased behind glass, whose timepiece is synchronized with the earth¡¯s orbit.

For years, Kilburg personally filled requests for Geochrons on a casual basis, resisting entreaties from his son Jim for marketing and production that would match the potential demand. "Dad was in his mid-70s, and he wasn¡¯t interested in making the quantum leap. He considered it risky," Jim Kilburg recalls. "It was more like a hobby for him: If you wanted a Geochron, you could call him and, if he wasn¡¯t in Lake Tahoe, you¡¯d get one."

Bob Williamson, CEO and Jim Kilburg, President
Since he purchased the company, with partner Bob Williamson, a year before James Kilburg¡¯s death in 1985 and moved its headquarters from San Mateo to Redwood City, the younger Kilburg¡¯s business acumen has proved to be superior to his powers of persuasion. Geochron sales grew from $288,000 in 1984 to $2 million in 1998, and are likely to make their biggest move yet in 1999. In a year full of Y2K concerns, there may be no better high-end, gotta-have-it than a museum-quality chronometer that will depict the dawning of a new millenium, longitude by longitude.
"We¡¯ve started a campaign to promote exactly that," says Kilburg, 52, who has a staff of 22 making sure there is enough inventory to meet demand.

The Geochron sells for $1,400 for the basic model to @2,400 for one with custom finishing touches. Kilburg estimates there are 35,000 to 40,000 units worldwide. "The loyalty to our product is incredible; we figure three out of every fives sales are directly related to word-of-mouth from existing owners."

Geochron has no direct competition, Kilburg says. Instead, it vies with the emotional sway of other luxury items such as jewelry. He has pursued growth by expanding the company¡¯s scope: Foreign sales zoomed from 10 percent in 1995 to 50 percent in 1998.

Geochron has also added a direct-mail catalog, overseen by Williamson, which offers lower-end products such as computer screensavers, laser pointers and desktop items, and which now accounts for 10 percent of the sales pie.

But little has changed in the composition of the Geochron. Today¡¯s model is the same as the one purchased by John Lennon and the one seen in Tom Clancy¡¯s The Hunt for Red October. The model is also the same as the model Ronald Reagan presented to Mikhail Gorbachev at the 1985 Geneva Summit and as the model Steven Spielberg uses to set his production schedule.

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