Swe-Check Celebrates 50 Year Anniversary

Swe-Check Pty Ltd was founded in 1963 by Jarker Gorander. Jarker was born and grew up on a little farm in Sweden. At the age of 16 he got the urge to travel and explore the world, so signed up for work on seagoing vessels. Over the following three years Jarker visited all continents before arriving in Australia in July 1953. Jarker got his first job in the electrical department at The Adelaide Steamship Co, while boarding with a family, whose son lent him 5 pounds, allowing him to purchase a pair of overalls, necessary attire for the job! Over the following three years, working six days a week with the company, Jarker spent his spare time studying Radio, TV & Electronic Controls by correspondence from The Hollywood Radio & TV Institute in USA. After receiving his Diploma in April 1956, Jarker moved to Melbourne where TV was due to commence in July, a few months before the Olympic Games. He was given a job to set up and run the TV- Service Department for a large department store.

While working as a TV-technician he developed the skills to design and manufacture a wide range of instruments and servicing aids, leading to the incorporation of Swe-Check Instruments in 1963. These products were initially promoted by Jarker making regular trips by car all over the country, visiting radio and television technicians and participating in exhibitions. As the name Swe-Check became known and its products became popular, contracts were won with international manufacturers like Philips. Then electrical wholesalers and electronic distributors decided to include them in their product range, dramatically increasing demand and turnover of all items. Close to one million audio and test leads were produced and sold.

Then in the early seventies, Jarker received an offer to enter into a partnership importing and distributing a wide range of Christmas Lights. Consequently, Lite Enterprises of Australia Pty Ltd was registered. This turned out to also become a very successful operation, importing light sets from Hong Kong and distributing through all major Australian department stores, electrical wholesalers and retailers. To establish a close relationship with the owner of the HK manufacturer, who could not speak English, Jarker decided to study Cantonese and enrolled for a course with the HK Radio. Business peaked in 1977 when Lite Enterprises accounted for 93% of Australia's imports. The company was sold at its peak in 1981.

In the mid seventies, competition from equivalent audio lead manufacturers, mainly in Taiwan, became too much, so Jarker had no choice but to phase out the local manufacture of Swe-Check Instruments products. Trying to decide what to do next was the big question. Then it came to him, during the time of manufacturing Swe-Check products he was sourcing fuses and circuit breakers from a company called Littelfuse Inc USA. Jarker approached them to become the Littelfuse Australian distributor and immediately they accepted. The demand for electronics grew quickly in Australia and so did the demand for state of the art electronic circuit protection. Initially cartridge fuses were the growth market but then came the demand for down sized products to fit directly onto printed circuit boards. PCB Mount fuses boomed until eventually Surface Mount technology became the new standard. Having the most advanced products in that field, the company’s electronic range grew with the demand. These became very popular with manufacturers and component distributors alike. Swe-Check Pty Ltd began its new life.

Today Swe-Check has expanded its locally stocked fuse range to include the world’s largest range of fuses for electronic, automotive, electrical, photovoltaic and transmission markets. The company now stocks over 8,500 different fuse products and has access to a further 300,000 indent lines. The product range starts at 2mA and goes through to 6000A, 6V to 36kV. Swe-Check distributes these products to equipment manufacturers, electronic component distributors, electrical wholesalers and also exports to customers all around the globe. Our agency lines include some of the world’s leading brands covering Bussmann, Belfuse, DF, Elcut, ETI, Fuzetec, Hinode, Littelfuse, Mechanical Products, Morsettitalia, MTA, Pacific Engineering, Song Chuan among just a few.

Fuses have always been the focus for our over circuit protection products, however in order to meet the demands of our customers, we have also added electronic and automotive circuit breakers, surge protection devices, relays, power distribution blocks and most recently terminal blocks. Many of these new products have come about from the request of our growth markets, including alternative energy and automotive fields. The latter has grown so much that it has required Swe-Check to form a new company called Prolec. New product packaging and merchandising is also in development and will be available for many products for both companies.

Swe-Check sponsors Team Swinburne’s electric race car which competes in the annual Formula SAE competition held in Werribee Victoria in December. Swe-Check is the perfect partner for this team’s electric race car since we have a complete range of circuit protection and distribution products for the electronics, automotive and high power electric circuits. Since joining the team we have been able to simplify the power distribution, reduce the components size, reduce the weight, improve reliability, and provide solutions to meet the ever increasing power demands. Team Swinburne was crowned as having the number one electric powered race car for Australia in 2012 and we look forward to more success in the 2013 event.

Jarker still comes to work every day and he is celebrating his 80th birthday this November. The company celebrates its 50th year anniversary and although Jarker does not look like slowing down anytime yet, when he finally does retire, the family legacy continues with his two sons Troy and Corey who have been in the company since 1990. They will ensure that Swe-Check will grow by servicing our customers with the highest quality products, most comprehensive range and best service for many years to come!