Milan Mandaric

From the mid-1900s till the end of the 20th century, many companies started their fortune in the semiconductors and telecommunication industry. Most of them became very successful due to the rising demand for technology with the increasing population and change in lifestyle. Sanmina Corporation is one such successful company in the field of electronics manufacturing services. The company was founded in 1980 by Jure Sola. Sanmina provides end-to-end design solutions of premium quality to the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). The company’s main fields of interest are communications network, healthcare, computing and storage, multimedia, defense, aerospace, clean tech sectors, etc.

A Brief Introduction about Sanmina Corporation

Sanmina Technology is based in San Jose, California. Within 40 years of its thriving business, the company has opened nearly 80 manufacturing sites, hired 40,000 employees, operating in more than 20 countries, and has already established itself as a technology leader. In 2018, the company was ranked 411 on the Fortune 500 list. Currently, Jure Sola is serving as the Chairperson and CEO of the company although there was a change in leadership in the meantime. As many big companies are eventually entering into the profitable industry of oil and gas, Sanmina has been a provider of manufacturing services to some big oilfield equipment and service corporations for the last 20 years.

Founding History of the Company

Jure Sola started working for Lika after graduating which produced electronic transducers and control instruments for factory automation. In 1980, he decided to establish his own company and thus co-founded Sanmina Corporation with Milan Mandaric. When Sola and Mandaric opened the company they exclusively manufactured printed circuit boards. For the first decade, the company expanded the business into manufacturing backplanes and subassemblies. In 1991, Jure Sola became the President and Chairman of the company.

In the 1990s, the company started designing and producing products for major OEM companies and acquired a bunch of businesses. In 1993, the company filed for an IPO and completed it on NASDAQ. In 1997, among the contract manufacturers present at that time, the company ranked ninth. So, Sanmina avoided manufacturing consumer products so that it can focus on high-end networking and telecommunication applications. Sola believed that the company had lots of opportunities if it went after designing and manufacturing products that are difficult to build internally.

Sanmina Corporation and SCI Systems

From the 1990s both the OEM companies and the contract manufacturers started working side by side like integrated cooperation. During this truly cooperative time, SCI became a pioneer in the list of OEM companies as it designed and produced almost everything for the Apollo Space Project. By the end of the 1990s, the company generated most of its revenue from government contracts and personal computers. Jure Sola saw this as an opportunity as it wanted to create a more diversified revenue system for Sanmina Corporation. This meant the company needed to bring a broader group of customers on board which led to the merger of SCI and Sanmina in 2001.

Sanmina generated two-thirds of its revenue from the communication market but it was really depressed during the time of the merger. So, this merger was very crucial for Sanmina Corporation to get back on its feet and emerge as a larger empire in the industry. In July 2001, Sanmina Corporation acquired SCI in a stock swap for $6 billion and it is till date one of the biggest acquisitions in the history of the electronic manufacturing services industry. After the acquisition, the new company started generating an annual revenue of nearly $12 billion and soon it became one of the top 5 companies in the electronics manufacturers industry. In the last few years, Sola’s company acquired a few more businesses and has maintained the quality of services provided.

The Founders: Jure Sola and Milan Mandaric

Jure Sola was born in 1951 in Croatia. He moved to the United States at the age of seventeen and completed his engineering from San Jose State University. After graduating in 1972 Sola joined Lika Corporation and worked there for eight years. In 1980, he co-founded Sanmina Corporation and switched his positions a couple of times.

Milan Mandaric is a Serbian-American businessman who started his career by taking control of his father’s machine shop. In 1969, he left his home country Yogoslavia and started working for an American company in California. Soon he founded his own company, Lika Corporation but after a few years sold it off to co-found Sanmina with Jure Sola.