About Mike

If you ask Mike Harpster, President of Capital Electric Wire & Cable, how he got his start in the industry, he’ll tell you it’s in his blood. “When we were kids my dad would bring us into Capital’s warehouse on Saturdays to re-spool wire by hand,” Mike says. “I remember it as being every Saturday but my Dad would probably say he brought us in twice. I’m sure somewhere in between there is the truth.”

The seeds for the Harpster family business were planted back in the 1950s when Mike’s father, Dick Harpster, sold electrical wire and cable at U.S. Steel. His division eventually closed so he decided to go into business for himself, forming Capital Electric in 1978.

Three years later Mike found himself graduating from Oconomowoc High School with no plans for his future. He briefly attended UW-Stout, then took a job with Wisconsin Furniture in 1983. Mike admits that while he wasn’t making any money, it was fun, so he was content. Then one day his dad took him aside and told him, “Son, you need to get a real job now. You have a child on the way.”

Sensing that father really does know best, Mike joined Capital Electric in June 1984 – the same month his son, Adam, was born. (That same son has been with Capital since 2003, currently serving as an Inside Sales Rep.) Mike began by working in the Warehouse but found his true niche two years later when Capital purchased its first computer system. “Everything seemed to click for me and I understood what the computer was doing and why it was so cool.”
In 1994 Dick retired and Mike took over as President, becoming more firmly entrenched in his career path. That year he made another major leap in his professional growth when he earned his RCDD (Registered Communications Distribution Designer) through BICSI, a professional association supporting the Information Transport Systems (ITS) industry. Mike takes pride in the credential, which is awarded to those who have trained and tested to the highest degree of telecommunications design knowledge in the industry.

Mike also lives out his passion through WTA (formerly Wisconsin Telecommunications Association), where he served as President in 2006, 2009 and 2010. He views the association as a safe environment where Telecom and IT professionals can gain knowledge from their peers – and he wants to help facilitate that. “That’s what gets me up in the morning,” Mike says. “I want to make a difference in peoples’ lives, and this is what I’ve found I’m good at: educating others about what cabling technologies can do for them.”

Today, Mike is as excited about the green initiative as he was about computers when they first came out. “There aren’t many of us in the industry who consider our product to be ‘green,’ ” he says. “But if you look at it over the long haul – as a way to support your needs over the next 20 years – then that’s as green as you can get.” Mike sees cabling not as an expenditure but as an investment, and he feels the best way to achieve sustainability is to buy the right product the first time and to find the right partner to help you do that.
Mike will also tell you that while wire and cabling products and technology have evolved over the years, what hasn’t changed at Capital is the level of service that sets them apart from the “big box” distributors. His mantra? “We’re large enough to handle your business but small enough to care.”

And that size seems to fit his customers – and Mike’s philosophy – perfectly.