Long before latest push to bring high tech to north Minneapolis there was Microtron
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Like many tech start-ups, Microtron wasn’t long-lived but its status as a giant in the Black business community is unassailable.
At its zenith, Microtron employed more than 100 employees and had a $1.5 million payroll. Most of the people who worked there were Black. And most lived in the north Minneapolis.
Matthew Ramadan was the executive director of the Northside Residents’ Redevelopment Council when Beck Horton’s Microton took over the old Control Data property on 12th Avenue in north Minneapolis.
“When I was managing, the state asked us to make sure that they were there,” said Ramadan. “That they were real positions and not ghost positions.”
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Ramadan said they documented that more than 100 employees from the northside actually worked at the company.
“And what it translated into was a $250,000 tax write off that Microtron used to get for having those employees that lived in north Minneapolis.”
Microtron was ahead of its time for the Twin Cities in that it was a Black-owned manufacturing and tech company. It manufactured electrical components — chime modules — for Ford vehicles. These modules alerted drivers about their open doors.
Horton is held in high regard by any number of Black strivers in the Twin Cities of the 1980s and 1990s. Whether it was a kind word, good advice, a useful connection or a much-needed check, Horton was a quiet force on the business scene of that era.
“He was a visionary,” said Roxanne Givens, a contemporary of Horton’s and owner of Legacy Management, a Minneapolis-based development company.
“I really think the Black community motivated him,” she said. “I really think he wanted to impact change.”
Horton came to Minneapolis in 1963 after graduating from the University of Kansas with a degree in electrical engineering. He spent three years with Honeywell, Inc. and the decade after as an executive at Ault Inc., a Brooklyn Park, Minn., company that manufactured power supplies and battery chargers.
In 1975, his success at Ault afforded him the $50,000 needed to start his own business, which he later merged with Juno Enterprises, a manufacturer of electromagnetic components in Coon Rapids, Minn. Juno had 90 employees and $7 million in annual sales by 1991.
Horton spread the word that he was looking to hire workers from north Minneapolis for Juno, but the commute to Coon Rapids proved to be an obstacle.
Lesson learned. He decided Microtron would be closer to the people who needed the jobs.
Ramadan says Beck was committed to building a strong Black community.
“Beck was an example of what a modern Black Wall Street person should look like because he wasn’t just using his business and extracting wealth from the community,” he said. “He was also reinvesting in the community.”
Alfred Babington-Johnson, founder of the north Minneapolis-based Stairstep Foundation agrees. Babington-Johnson’s vision for Stairstep was to involve well-off Black residents to invest in businesses that would provide economic returns for a struggling Black community.
His goal was to raise money in $15,000 increments from wealthy, Black Twin Citians. Horton stepped up immediately. His involvement got major financial players involved and he served in various capacities on the nonprofit’s board of directors.
“Our project was too small. We needed a larger place to play, so we enlisted General Mills. General Mills came forward with us, in some measure, because they saw Beck standing there.”
Horton passed away in 2010 at the age of 72. Microtron is no more.
Black entrepreneurs are fond of saying that they stand on the shoulders of giants. Horton’s giant legacy remains as an inspiration for those who seek to walk in his footsteps.