Upton Machine Co. snagged a critical first customer—the Federal Electric division of Commonwealth Edison—but the company wasn’t on the road to success quite yet. Every washing machine in Federal Electric’s first order of 100 had defective gears. With only five or six employees and no capital, the easy choice would have been for Upton to throw in the towel, but the company chose to absorb the cost of repairing every machine, setting a standard for quality and integrity that would define the company for years to come.