 In 1932, working with his two brothers and a machinist, Gunnar Tillander, Kjellström helped perfect a new type of compass for terrestrial navigation, featuring a liquid-damped magnetized needle housing compass and a protractor built into a transparent baseplate.In 1946, he moved to the United States, where he founded the U.S. operations of the Silva Company (later Silva, Inc.) in La Porte, Indiana.Two years later, he organized Silva Ltd. in Toronto, Canada for sales in Canada.