AFCO was founded in 1937 by Abe Ferer. After World War II, AFCO began trading excess cloth rag material and used clothing from Oakland, California to post-war Japan. Japan needed clothing and the rag material to make paper to re-build the walls of their destroyed homes. Without a solid monetary foundation, the Japanese traders offered unique electronics made from the newly invented transistor. Transistor radios became AFCO's first consumer electronics product from Japan, and AFCO became AFCO Electronics. Erwin, Abe’s son, educated at University of the Pacific as an electrical engineer, joined the business in the 1950's. He, along with his brother-in-law, Alfee Gross, expanded the offerings in the 1950’s and 1960’s to include radio and television products and then CB radios and car accessories and acted as a distributor to Wal-Mart, Grand Auto, Kragen Auto, K-mart and many others. In 1959, when Japan's Panasonic brand entered the US market, the principals of Matsushita Electric Corporation sought AFCO to become one of their first distributors. AFCO continued to grow in the 1970s and beyond and added other brands, including AFCO designs. In the late 1970s, the third generation of Abe Ferer's family joined AFCO. Sandy Gross, Alfee's son and Erwin's nephew, began working in the AFCO warehouse while attending University of California, Berkeley. After graduating Sandy joined the company full-time and eventually became President. And today, Sandy’s children pitch in to process orders and answer phones during school breaks, bringing the fourth generation of the AFCO family onto the team.