Toye Corporation

Toye Corporation.........

Access Control Systems

Card Access • Parking Management • Elevator Control • Building Security • Automatic Vehicle Identification
Stand-Alone And Network Based Systems
A Proud History Of Leadership And Innovation
America's Oldest Electronic Access Control Systems Manufacturer Since 1962

After 40 Years, It Was Time To Go Sailing

Here's The Toye Corporation Story
As I became more and more aware of the quickly developing shift from paper to plastic data input cards for industrial computer systems, I had an opportunity to purchase the assets of a plastic card company that had been out of business for several years. My new business began on Monday, October 22, 1962 when the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce hosted a special event meant to connect high level corporate executives with fledgeling 'wannabe' entrepreneurs seeking solutions to their unique problems. So I showed up. Indeed, the most prestigious companies were there. I

walked up to a table with a gentleman sitting behind a name plaque that read Daniel J. Houghton, President, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. Why not? I grew up in the San Fernando Valley not far from Lockheed. Mr. Houghton explained that Lockheed had recently purchased and installed 160 on-line data collection terminals replacing traditional off-line time clocks used by employees to punch in and out of work. These terminals would save millions of dollars by eliminating the keypunch operators needed to manually enter the data from paper time cards into the payroll computers. There was one unexpected problem; the new terminals would not accept paper time cards because of the strict tolerances of + or - .002". I agreed to develop a plastic card that could meet the specifications.

The manufacturer of the shop terminals was RCA, and they were so relieved that they agreed to pay all the costs to develop the card including the cost to build a machine that would punch tiny holes in the plastic cards containing the Binary Coded Decimal code unique to each employee. After a month of testing, we received an order for 30,000 cards, one for each employee. That resulted in the business of every other RCA data terminal customer, and then the business of IBM that entered the market to compete with RCA, but with an entirely different encoding method. This early windfall led to the subsequent development of our own electronic card reader with hidden code that could be used for entry control security as well. That product became the backbone of the Toye Corporation product line that still exists today.

In 1974, we developed and patented the industry's first non-magnetic digital security access card and a solid state electronic card reader which was ranked #1 for security by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That led to Toye system installations at numerous nuclear power plants across the country. Even the FBI installed a system at its headquarters.

We manufactured the systems at our plant in Chatsworth California and in ParisFrance under an exclusive license granted to European security giant FichetBauche/Gunnebo. In addition, our secure technology was marketed under private label world-wide by Johnson Controls of Milwaukee Wisconsin.