Jack and Howard chose very early to begin a profit sharing plan with employees.  The motivation for the plan was to encourage employees to focus on the well being of the company to manufacture the finest oscilloscopes in the world.  Side benefits would be to increase productivity, decrease theft, increase employee morale and decrease the opportunity for organized labor.  The first payout of profit share was in 1949 and amounted to 25% of pre-tax profits paid to each employee in proportion to their salary.  At one point late in the 1950s profit share rose to as much as of 62% of pre-tax profits.

Jack and Howard wanted to encourage employees to save part of their profit share for retirement.  The Board of Directors addressed this concern directly in creating a retirement trust in December of 1953.  One half of profit share was paid to the Profit Sharing Retirement Trust on behalf of the employee.  In 1972 it evolved to became the Profit Sharing Retirement Trust and Employees Profit-Share Deferral Plan. In 1988 the plan changed to become a 401(K) plan and employees were given the choice to distribute the existing amount in their Profit Sharing Retirement plan.

This 1959 Profit Sharing Retirement Trust statement details the investments made by the trust including the land purchase for the Beaverton.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

This 1960 Profit Sharing Retirement Trust statement shows an increase in diversity of the investments.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

The Profit Sharing Retirement Trust did well for employees and in 1971 returned a whopping 30.86% of earnings from investment.

This Profit-Sharing Retirement Trust Annual Report  is from 1972.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

This Profit-Sharing Retirement Trust Annual Report  is from 1973.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

This December 18, 1974 TekWeek explains the Tektronix Profit Sharing Plan.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

 

This Profit-Sharing Retirement Trust Annual Report  is from 1975.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

This Profit-Sharing Retirement Trust Annual Report  is from 1976.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

This Profit-Sharing Retirement Trust Annual Report  is from 1978.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

This undated brochure describes the company's profit sharing plan.  Click on the image to view the PDF.