 In that year, John G. Brooks, a flamboyant entrepreneur, and nine other associates bought the Siegler Corporation of Centralia, Illinois, for $3.3 million - $3.2 million of this money was borrowed for 24 hours at a cost of $60,000.Over the next decade and a half Brooks, who became Siegler’s first president, established a reputation for supervising numerous startling acquisitions.In June 1955, seven months after the merger, Hallamore Manufacturing Company, an electronics firm, became Siegler’s first "technology" acquisition.