Page 18 - CFESA Magazine July / August 2018

COMPANY

SPOTLIGHT

3 GENERATIONS STRONG Business was booming, and a second
Dan Dibeler / President location opened in York, PA in 1953. It was
around this time that Spark decided to
K&D Factory Service
change the name of the company to K&D
Appliance Service. That same year he was
In 1945 just a few months after the end of
approached by Toastmaster who wanted
World War II my great uncle, Spark Dixon,
him to be their ASA in his two markets.
and his business partner George Kraft
Spark was excited about this opportunity.
formed K&D Clock Repair from a small
However there was one condition, he would
shop in downtown Harrisburg PA. Spark’s
have to service their commercial units as
wife, Elsie joined the two gentlemen and
well as the residential equipment. After two
handled the bookkeeping. After a short
years of back and forth with Toastmaster,
period, Mr. Kraft decided to part ways with
Spark finally agreed to their terms.
my uncle. Since they already had a sign on
the building, Spark just decided to keep the
By the 60’s K&D represented over 50
name K&D.
commercial lines. The business was
growing, but Spark was finding it harder
Business at K&D was going well. As the
and harder to find and train technicians
50’s hit all sorts of electric appliances and
for he company’s specialty field. (It seems
apparatuses started to become available
some things never change) So Spark and
to consumers including the electric range.
a few other service company owners got
With all of its technological advances,
together in 1963 and Founded CFESA with
the first thing to break on those ranges
the mission of providing industry training.
was usually the clock (or be it the timer),
I think they had the right idea and we all
so Spark would get called out to fix it.
know what CFESA has become.
Eventually, these marvels of modern cooking
would have other issues, such as a failed
element, and people would instinctively
call the same place that had fixed it before.
K&D started to get many of these calls
and Spark decided he should learn how to
repair ranges. From there he learned how
to service all manner of electric appliances,
from toasters to blenders to the first electric
razors.

18 CFESA Magazine | JULY / AUGUST 2018 | www.cfesa.com