Prepared privately for Linda & Tim Naegeli

Fifty-four years of careful work.
A plan worthy of it.

This page is my commitment, written down: how I see the business your family has built since 1972, what I will do with it, and how every payment to you is protected along the way. It is private — not searchable, not linked from anywhere, and visible only to the people you choose to share this address with.

— Joshua Matson, October 2026
Why this buyer

What ESW Needs Next — and What I Bring

I'm Joshua Matson. My wife Andrea and I are making ESW our family's work — not an investment or a flip. We intend to run it, grow it, and be part of the Racine community for the long haul.

Here is how I see the business, stated plainly. ESW's engineering, build quality, and reputation are not problems to solve — they are the assets to protect. What the company has never needed until now, because reputation and repeat customers carried it, is a commercial engine: proactive selling, disciplined pricing, and revenue that recurs between equipment orders. That is the work I have done for twenty years. What I have not done is build and service test equipment — that knowledge lives on ESW's floor and with Tim and Linda, and the plan depends on learning it from them, not presuming to replace it.

The business needs

A proactive sales effort. ESW's order flow has always come from reputation and repeat customers — which built the company, but leaves revenue lumpy and growth waiting on the phone to ring.

What I bring

A career building and running industrial sales organizations — territory design, pipeline discipline, hiring and developing sellers — at Rockwell Automation and now advising executives on it at Gartner.The relationships and credibility are Tim's. My job is to build structure and support around him — and learn the customers through him.

The business needs

Pricing that reflects the value of the work. ESW's systems protect customers' entire production lines, yet quotes have stayed modest while costs have risen across the industry.

What I bring

Pricing strategy is a core part of my advisory work — value-based quoting, margin discipline, and raising prices without damaging trust.Every pricing move gets Tim and Linda's read on the customer first. They know which relationships carry history that a spreadsheet can't see.

The business needs

Revenue between equipment orders. Calibration and service happen today, but ad hoc — a standing program would steady the business through slow equipment years like the ones ESW has weathered before.

What I bring

Designing recurring-revenue programs — service contracts, renewals, customer-success economics — is work I've done repeatedly for industrial and technology businesses.The service team knows every installed system and every customer's habits far better than I will for years. The program gets built around their knowledge.

The business needs

An owner who is credible with engineers. ESW's customers are engineers and plant managers — they can tell within minutes whether the person across the table understands their world.

What I bring

I started as an engineer and spent years at Rockwell Automation around motors, drives, and the plants that build them — the same industrial world ESW's customers live in.ESW's application depth — the judgment in every fixture and test spec — takes years to earn. Year one, I'm the student.

What stays the same

  • The ESW name — on the building, on the products, on the service van
  • The entire team, retained — with promotion paths and retention bonuses
  • Tim, selling — as Sales Director, with real support behind him
  • Linda, advising — paid consulting through the transition, on her schedule
  • The standard Al set — listen, build honestly, stand behind it

How I plan to learn

  • Year one is for listening — every job, every customer, every routine, before changing any of them
  • Linda's consulting arrangement exists because I will need it — and I intend to use it
  • Tim's road time doubles as my education — I want to be in the truck for the customer visits that matter
  • The team teaches me the shop; I don't walk in pretending otherwise

The commitment behind the signature: the terms Linda and Tim asked for double my down payment, add full payment for the inventory, and put my personal guarantee behind every dollar of the note. I'm placing a substantial share of what my family has built into this company — and I can take that risk with confidence because of the foundation the Naegeli family spent fifty years building underneath it.

The roadmap

The Five-Year Plan

ESW doesn't need rescuing — it needs reinforcement. The plan adds a sales engine, recurring service revenue, and disciplined pricing to a company whose engineering and reputation already lead the market. Four areas of focus:

01

A real sales engine

Build the proactive sales effort ESW has never needed until now — pipeline discipline, a junior seller developed under Tim, and rep coverage into the Midwest corridor and Mexico's motor-manufacturing belt.

02

Pricing that honors the work

ESW's craftsmanship has been underpriced for years. Quotes move to margins the equipment deserves — protecting the company's health and funding its future, while remaining the best value in the market.

03

Certified Care — recurring service

Annual calibration and maintenance agreements that keep customers' equipment under ESW protection for its working life — steady revenue between equipment orders, and a reason to talk to every customer every year.

04

New capacity, new markets

Follow the announced wave of North American motor and EV-component plant investment — the customers who will need test equipment next — while deepening the industries ESW already serves.

Year 1

Steady hands

No disruption. Learn every job, every customer, every routine. Quote discipline begins; Certified Care launches with existing service customers; the team sees that nothing they value changes.

Years 2–3

Build the engine

Junior seller hired and developed under Tim. Rep coverage established. Care contracts become a meaningful revenue layer. Marketing refreshed around the customer's problems — not just the catalog.

Years 4–5

Compound

The sales engine runs without heroics. Service revenue smooths the equipment cycle. The building purchase option is exercised, and the company's growth funds its own next investments.

The part that matters most to you

Keeping Every Promise

Every structure in our agreement was designed around one question: is every payment to Linda and Tim protected — even in a slow year? The chart below shows the answer the way a banker would: how many times over the business's cash flow covers your note payment, each year, after rent and operating costs — on my plan, and in a deliberately conservative scenario built on flat revenue at historical margins.

Note payment coverage by year — the payment is covered multiple times over in every year, in both the plan scenario and a conservative scenario.
Covered in every year, in every scenarioEven the conservative case — flat revenue, historical margins — covers the note payment more than twice over in its tightest year. The plan case covers it three to five times over.
You get paid faster when ESW winsHalf of every year's free cash flow above a healthy operating floor goes to you as extra principal. When the plan works, the note retires in roughly five years — performance pays you first.
A floor under the businessThe company always retains an operating cushion before any sweep is calculated — so the business stays healthy, payroll is never at risk, and slow years are absorbed the way ESW has always absorbed them.
Skin in the game, in writingA doubled down payment, full payment for inventory, my personal guarantee on the note, and no bank between us. If ESW struggles, I feel it before you do — that is exactly how I designed it.
Beyond the plan

What I Want ESW to Become

The five-year plan is the commitment. These are the aspirations — the things I'll be working toward because they're the right way to honor what this company is.

A sales team built around Tim

Tim has carried ESW's relationships for decades, mostly alone. I want to build a team around him — people he develops, territory he directs, and the road time he's always wanted with real support behind it. His knowledge becomes the curriculum.

For Tim

A recurring foundation of service

A base of Certified Care calibration and maintenance relationships that keeps every customer protected and gives ESW dependable revenue in every economy — so no future slow year ever threatens what the Naegeli family built.

For the company

Profit sharing for the team

Once every dollar owed to Linda and Tim is fully paid, ESW will launch an employee profit-sharing program. The people who built this company alongside your family should share in what comes next. Your payoff comes first — then theirs begins.

For the team
A glimpse of the storefront

A Look Ahead: The Customer's ESW

Part of the growth plan is telling ESW's story the way customers experience it — organized around their problems and their industries — with the Naegeli story, from Al's basement in 1972 to today, woven in as the proof behind every promise. Below is a working design concept for that future customer website. It's a draft, built to show direction — explore it right here.

Design concept — the future eswtesters.com

Prefer a full screen? Open the concept in its own tab →