AT ONE TIME, Yeap Khek Teong's job was to design weapons for national defence. His track record of deadly devices included the howitzer, an artillery piece with a long barrel for launching projectiles. Khek Teong was a manufacturing engineer with the Chartered Industries of Singapore. It was set up in 1967 to produce ammunition and weapons for the Singapore Armed Forces.

Chartered Industries gave out several scholarships for study at NTI. After graduation, scholars such as Michael Chua Lee Huat returned to serve their bond. “As a young engineer, I handled the design and development of a photocopier binding machine for Xerox Corporation,” recalled Michael Chua. Today, he manages defence-related projects. Classmate Eng Tian Soon was a colleague that oversaw the manufacture of equipment. He had a staff of 30 people comprising shift supervisors, technicians and inspectors under him.

Chartered Industries has a subsidiary — Chartered Electronics Industries. The latter produce electronic fuses, military communications equipment and small arms training simulators. Chan Yew Meng did research and development for military hardware. His colleague, Chee Choong Yang, went to Germany for training and transferred the technology back to Singapore.

In 2000, Chartered Industries merged with ST Automotive to form ST Kinetics, a subsidiary of ST Engineering under the Singapore Technologies Group, a government-linked company.

Sudheer Prabhakaran is now in Bangalore, India to set up the ST Kinetics plant to manufacture construction equipment, maintenance equipment, excavators and dump trucks. He said, “I still have the pioneering spirit. I could not resist the chance to build a team to meet the needs of the growing Indian market.” Sudheer was previously the General Manager of Singapore Test Services, a ST Kinetics subsidiary. He spent 16 years with this subsidiary that provides independent testing, inspection and certification services to the industry.

Other ST Engineering subsidiaries include ST Aerospace, ST Marine and ST Electronics. ST Engineering is one of the largest firms on the Singapore Exchange. It is one of Asia's largest defence and engineering groups. It specialises in solutions and services for the aerospace, electronics and marine sectors.

ST Electronics focuses on satellite communications, interactive digital media and e-government solutions.