Ulla Bak, Esq., the President and Co-Founder of Bak USA, loves to talk about the diverse workforce she and her husband, J.P., have assembled, in a social enterprise that builds mobile computers on the entire fourth floor of the Compass East Building on the city’s East Side.
She is especially proud of the women members of their team and on March 8, which is International Women’s Day, Bak USA acknowledged its women-powered workforce by featuring Ulla and three others on its website with a brief description and their woman of influence. For Ulla, one of Buffalo Business First’s Power 100 Women and a 2015 Women of Influence, she named Marie Curie as her woman of influence. A Polish physicist and chemist, she is the only woman to have won the Nobel Prize twice and the only one to win in two different categories—physics and chemistry. She truly was a pioneer in the field of science.
Ulla is following Curie’s footsteps of making an impact in the world and is clearly becoming a pioneer in the field of computer tablets.
When she and J.P. retired as extremely successful attorneys in Denmark, she quickly became bored and began looking for a challenge when they decided to go to Haiti after it was devastated by an earthquake in 2010 to help build houses. As the homes were built, the Bak’s looked around and said these people need someplace to work so they soon opened a production plant where locals assembled tens of thousands of tablets it sold in impoverished African countries. Once that operation was successful and could sustain itself, the Baks sold it to its Haitian partners so they could concentrate on Bak USA.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s Start Up NY program is what brought them to Buffalo and once they toured the city they knew this was the perfect home to create jobs in an economically depressed area where they could hire and train refugee and marginalized workers and sell affordable technology to those who needed them.
The company and its ever growing, dynamic workforce takes great pride in a business model that allows a team member to manufacture an entire tablet at a work station that reads, “Made In Buffalo, New York USA” on the back of them.
On Tuesday, March 7, Bak USA held a ribbon cutting to announce its expansion in the Compass East Building. As a who’s who of the region’s business community wandered through the space, young, happy and extremely hospitable Bak team members circulated through the space introducing themselves and welcoming everyone to their home. Each wore a Bak USA shirt with “Born in Buffalo, Built for the World” on the back.
During the media event before the ribbon cutting, Ulla was beaming as the proud matriarch of this technology company that is doing what many thought could not be done, especially in Buffalo, New York.
“Today, our entire Bak USA family is proud to acknowledge all of the progress we have made in such a short period of time. They said we could not build computers in the United States, but now that we have found a home in Buffalo, we are showing the world that yes, this is possible,” she declared with a tremendous amount of pride. “And as we continue to grow, we are preparing ourselves to increase our productivity, enhance our processes, and broaden our distribution.
“Ultimately, we hope that Buffalo and Bak USA will be an example of what manufacturing could look like anywhere else in the world.”
Ulla was most proud to introduce the audience to the newest member of the Bak USA workforce, whose name was created by the team—Bakito.
“Our newest family member is Mr. Smily,” she said. “He is made of metal with wires so, you may wonder, how can he be a family member and reflect the heart and soul of our company? Well, Bakito certainly can because, despite being a robot, he is collaborating with members of our Bak USA family and he is giving them a helping hand. This helping hand means that we can become efficient, more cost efficient and it will allow us to expand. More expansion here in Buffalo means we can add more men and women to our team.”
When J.P. and Ulla moved to Buffalo, their children, Christian and Eva, were forging their own paths elsewhere. It did not take them long for them to venture to the Queen City to join their folks. Eva is the Chief People Officer at Bak USA and Christian is a Co-Founder and its Chief Technology Officer.
Christian talked about the company’s new digs at Compass East, the former Sheehan Memorial Hospital that was totally renovated by the McGuire Group, as “the window of how we see the world.”
Pointing to Bakito and the various work stations around him, he continued, “We want this to be representative of what we think the future of advanced manufacturing can be; a true combination between human beings and robotics on the types of products that will really serve the needs and desires of the community within they were built.
“This is to us,” he continued, “what is the true representation of what the future should look like and it is happening right now and right here for all of us to be proud of.”
He then thanked a very special partner of Bak USA, Buffalo Manufacturing Works, a Buffalo Billion company which is operated by EWI. “That group has shaped and influenced how we think about advanced manufacturing and we are greatly honored and deeply indebted to them for being our thought partners and working alongside of us as we develop many exciting new products that you will see in the marketplace very, very soon.
“That team proves our model works—local collaboration, local contributions and local production and partnerships combine to make a big difference,” he continued. “They will not only make an impact here but they will help us produce products that can work around the world.”
Christian calls his Bak USA team in Buffalo ‘dreamers, tinkerers, builders and creators.’
Christian calls his Bak USA team in Buffalo “dreamers, tinkerers, builders and creators.”
“We are extremely diverse and that is our special sauce and it is also what makes us unique,” he explained. “We draw talents from around the world and from all socio economic spectrums and we will never keep our door closed from anyone.”
Ryan Litt, Bak USA Vice President of Product Development, has been in the industry for 12 years and with Bak for eight months. “My experience here has been absolutely exciting and it is mostly because this is a people first company and that is clearly apparent with the founders.”
Bak USA has a lofty vision: “Make mobile technologies accessible to every human being on earth.”
Walking through its world headquarters in Buffalo, inter-acting with many of its team members, listening to Mayor Byron Brown and County Executive Mark Polancarz talk about the impact they have already had in Buffalo and then see representatives of billionaire Tom Golisano, who invested in the company, and Microsoft, which is collaborating on projects, its vision may not be too far off.