Old Skool Surplus
Our History
A Family of 3 Generations
Old Skool Surplus grew from the roots of Caldwell Electric, an electric motor repair shop started in 1976 by Otto Caldwell Jr., who worked for his father, Otto Caldwell Sr. at the original Caldwell Electric, founded in 1938. We are still operating in the same building since 1980, selling new motors and motor controls under distributorship lines such as Baldor, WEG, Worldwide, and Techtop.  His son, Otto Caldwell III is now running the business. Mr. Caldwell still shows up at the office every day, spending his time going through all his old school photos he has taken since the early 1950s.
Old Skool Surplus

Old Skool Surplus

Old Skool Surplus is a website created to sell the surplus inventory collected by Mr. Caldwell over 40 years of being in business.  Otto enjoyed buying surplus from various suppliers over the years.  I still remember as a boy going to the Dallas "Sidewalk Sale" with Dad on the first Saturday of each month, where he would buy surplus electronics.  I bought my first computer there around 1978, a KIM-1 computer board, the predecessor to the Commadore 64.  I still have it to this day!  With that I learned to program in 6502 assembly language, and then built a robot with it based on the book "How To Build  A Computer Controlled Robot" by Todd Loofbourrow. Thus began a lifelong passion for electronics, robotics and computer programming.

Otto "Hobie" Caldwell III,
President & CEO
Meet The Founders

Otto Caldwell II

Founder
Otto has worked on electric motors and controls since the 1940s. His colorful history in includes: an amatuer radio (HAM) operator - W5ZSY, member of the Army Reserves where he worked on the radios of target drones; working as motor and controls tech at his father's shop (the first Caldwell Electric), an amateur photo-journalist with many published photos, a radio-tv repairman, an electronics technician degree from TSTC, and founder of Industrial Electric Repairs & Sales Inc, dba Caldwell Electric.

Otto (Hobie) Caldwell III

President/CEO
Hobie's curiosity with electricity began early in life, starting with sticking bobby pins into electrical outlets at age 3, much to the horror of his mother. He built a robot at age 12 based on the KIM-1 computer, built a wire-wrapped Z80 mico-computer, a rubidium-dye laser, and worked on motor and drives at the shop in high school. He earned a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University, and started his career at IBM in Austin as a test engineer. He later worked as a research engineer at Applied Research Laboratories in Austin, founded an LED Marine Lighting company, and eventually came back to Waco to manage the family business.