Tecate Group
Tecate Industries was founded in 1975 by Ralph Scarano, a San Diego electronics engineer and entrepreneur with over 60 years of experience in the capacitor industry. Ralph’s vision that capacitors could be manufactured cost-effectively in Mexico led to the selection of the border town of Tecate as the site for its first manufacturing facility, giving the company not only capacitors but also its name. By 1987, the company was led by Bob Scarano, Ralph’s son, and had grown enough to add a new division. Tecate Products was formed to meet the needs of the audio and automotive industries for contract manufacturing and complete turnkey design. In just a few years, Tecate Products achieved QS9000 certification and built a client list that included eight of the top ten national loudspeaker manufacturers and all three major domestic automakers. In the early 2000s, Tecate Industries and Tecate Products divisions merged into a single entity, Tecate Group. Benefiting from the synergies created by Tecate Industries’ capacitor experience and Tecate Products’ assembly experience, in 2004 Tecate Group began designing, manufacturing, and selling ultracapacitor cells and modules. Tecate pioneered the concept of off-the-shelf modules, allowing customers to test the technology before designing their own custom modules, and the Tecate Group also launched an online store to support design engineers needs for fast delivery of small batch orders. Tecate is now a leading supplier of supercapacitors to the data storage and smart grid industries, with an expanding list of high-profile customers.