Force Tech Talk Episode 24: The Founder Story, with Mike Salmon (Part 1)
7 September 2026
Show Notes
In this episode of Force Tech Talks, Chris Dawes sits down with Mike Salmon, the founder of Force Technologies, to hear how the company started in 1986 and how it grew into the obsolescence specialist it is today.
Mike walks through the early days: giving up a comfortable sales job for a desk and a telephone, flying to the United States to sign up as the first distributor for a brand new chip company called Atmel, and making around 100 calls a day for two years until the business took off. By 1991 to 1992, Force was turning over around a million dollars a year on that single franchise.
Then Atmel opened its own European office and took the business direct. Losing the franchise forced a change of direction, and around 1995 a defence customer with an obsolete part gave Mike the idea that became Force Technologies as we know it: find a compatible die, package it to match the original, test it, and keep it in supply. That first part stayed in supply for around 20 years.
Watch part one now, and look out for part two later in September.
