Amdek, Inc. originated in 1991 by Robert Tetzlaff, the son of a naturalized citizen Roger W. Tetzlaff, who immigrated to the United States in 1949 as an indentured servant. Robert was trained "old world school," meaning if you ran or sold a machine, you learned how to build one. He went to Germany for 10 months as an apprentice at Battenfeld GMBH to learn all aspects of building a molding machine. Robert started on the ground floor of pad printing as an independent sales representative in the early 1980s when ITW Trans Tech came to the United States. This position allowed him the privilege of working with and learning from hundreds of companies and a vast array of manufacturing, quality and large-scale production processes.