LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Innovation is alive and well in Connecticut

Your article about the gun industry in New Haven, “Rifles over 2 centuries: Iconic manufacturers made New Haven home,” on Aug. 12 was interesting and I enjoyed seeing quotes from my dad and grandfather. You may be interested in the “next chapter” at Marlin.

As you noted in the article, my grandfather, Frank Kenna Sr., bought Marlin Firearms out of bankruptcy in 1924. He soon came to realize that manufacturing was dangerous in those pre-OSHA days and posted safety posters that were routinely ignored by employees. But he had an idea. At that time, he had another started-inNew Haven company called Illustrated Current News which delivered news photos to New Haven retail businesses that posted them in their shop windows. People walking by would stop to read the latest news and would sometimes walk into the store to buy something.

His idea was to post these news photos next to the safety posters in the factory in the hope employees would be attracted enough to read both. The idea worked, and he eventually started selling the idea to area businesses under the company name Marlin Industrial Division, Inc.

In the late 1980s, I got involved with the poster company and we split the companies apart as we were now selling the product nationally. Around 2001, we started experimenting with software and the internet with the idea that we could send “electronic posters” to our customers much faster and with much more current information. We started selling a digital version of our product in 2004.

Over the next 13 years, we transitioned the company to a fully digital enterprise, publishing dozens of short videos each month on important issues like safety, quality, morale and teamwork. Our software allows customers to instantly post their in-house content (e.g., employee of the month, important production stats) instantly, and has earned 8 U.S. patents over the years.

In December 2016, we shut down our last print-based customers and became a fully digital company as of Jan 1, 2017. Today we have 130 employees, and 13,000 locations around the world using our products to communicate with their employees.

Innovation is alive and well in Connecticut!

Frank Kenna III, CEO

Wallingford

Yale’s effort to secure sensitive data not good enough

Re “Yale reveals personal data stolen from server in 2008-09” (July 31, 2018):

Perhaps it’s worth noting that the reported security breach, in which the names, Social Security numbers, birthdates, and addresses of over 100,000 Yale affiliates were stolen, occurred less than a year after a previous incident where the university failed to prevent the theft of thousands of students’ and faculty members’ personal data.

Following that earlier incident, then-Yale President Richard C. Levin announced in the fall of 2007 that “We have expanded and accelerated our ongoing program to secure all sensitive data.”

Not good enough, Yale. Benjamin Givan, Yale PhD ’03

Saratoga Springs, NY