Anatole’s son Neal, recently graduated from college, joined the company as its seventh employee. The company grew modestly, as PDC always hires people for the long term rather than hiring and then downsizing with each business cycle. An exceptional team of engineers, machinists and staff was assembled and PDC provided heavy duty, highly efficient packaging machinery to consumer markets throughout the Americas.

The Tylenol incident in Chicago occurred, in which someone poisoned bottles of pain medicine, and suddenly the demand for tamper evident banding and sleeving machinery grew dramatically. At the same time, a venture in Montdidier, France, headed by a talented design engineer, Jean-Claude Vandevoorde, eventually became PDC Europe. Anatole and Jean-Claude became close friends, as did their wives, and they traveled extensively together over the years. PDC International and PDC Europe collaborated closely, holding technical and marketing conferences in both the USA and France, resulting in many technical innovations and new products. PDC Europe, now managed by Jean-Claude’s son, Derek Vandevoorde, has continued to thrive for over 35 years, building both shrink and stretch sleeving equipment.

The company relocated to Hermanny Court in East Norwalk, a former furniture mill. Machine tools were purchased and machinists and assemblers hired as the business slowly grew.

A three-car garage, and the apartment above, at 8 Cove Avenue in East Norwalk, was the company’s second home. A Polish artist, in lieu of back rent, designed PDC’s logo, a derivation of the three-legged “Trinacria” symbol of Sicily, in honor of Anatole’s wife Rosaria and her family.

Soon machine design and automation became PDC’s primary focus and its eventual direction was unknowingly determined in a large automation project — making, collating and packaging emery board nail files (gluing emery paper onto balsa wood, rolling and die cutting) for the Bassett company of Shelton, Connecticut.

The Norwalk Lock Building at 18 Marshall Street became the first real company home, in a 400- square foot space in a then-rough industrial building. Anatole’s brother Bill joined the company as a draftsman.

Beginning in the den of Anatole Konstantin’s residence, Product Design Corporation offered services ranging from consumer product development to machine design. Its first years were varied and exploratory.