Business briefs

Electrical Apparatus, May 2002

K.J. Electric purchases

Grand Eagle Utica facility

K.J. Electric of Syracuse, N.Y, an electromechanical service and sales company with branches in Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, and Rochester, has bought the Utica, MY, operation of Grand Eagle, Inc., which sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December and since then has been selling its assets. The 25,000-square-foot Utica facility is equipped with crane capacity of 50,000 lbs. and apparatus testing up to 4,100 volts. K.J. Electric's president, Kenneth Jacobs, says he plans to invest $500,000 in new shop equipment and additional stock of motors, drives, controls, and power transmission products. As noted in last month's Electrical Apparatus (page 14), Grand Eagle, of Richfield, Ohio, previously sold its North American Coil subsidiary to National Electric Coil of Columbus and its Massillon, Ohio, service facility to 3-D Service Ltd. of Massillon.

P.D. George Co.

forms Epoxylite team

St. Louis-based resin and varnish manufacturer PD. George Co., which acquired the Epoxylite/Ripley Corp.'s resin business last year, recently announced that a management team has been chosen to manage sales, service, technical support, and research and development. Rohn Grant, deputy business unit manager of varnish and compounds, will lead the division. Patrick Timmins, electric motor specialist, will provide application expertise. Randy Roschnafsky becomes account representative for electric motor repair markets. Dana Roschnafsky becomes technical service specialist. Chemist Anna Abell will be responsible for research and development.

D-C power products

suppliers merge

EnerSys, Inc., of Reading, Pa., a provider of stored d-c power products, systems, and services, has acquired the Energy Storage products group of Invensys plc, headquartered in Chippenham, England. Both enterprises provide stored-energy products to such markets as utilities, uninterruptible power supplies, telecommunications, data communications, the Internet, and materials handling. With the acquisition, EnerSys employs about 7,000 people at manufacturing facilities around the world and at offices in over 27 countries. The organization will continue to operate as EnerSys, Inc., with international headquarters in Reading and divisional headquarters in Europe and Asia.

United Electric Controls

buys pressure switch line

United Electric Controls, of Watertown, Mass., a manufacturer of threshold detection and switching products, recently bought the series 360 and 460 compact stainless-steel pressure switches and pressure transmitters from Artisan Technologies of Parsippany, N.J. Applications for the products include safety and monitoring systems on offshore platforms, oil and gas exploration, and pipeline and delivery systems, as well as process and equipment protection in refineries and chemical and petrochemical plants.

Waukesha Electric

lays off 60 workers

Waukesha Electric Co. of Waukesha, Wis., a manufacturer of power transformers, announced in April that it would lay off about 60 production workers, joining the 70 salaried employees whose layoffs were noted in last month's "Business Briefs" (page 14). The most recent layoffs are expected to last four months, company officials told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The layoffs are being blamed on a drop in demand for power transformers following the collapse of Enron Corp., once the nation's largest energy trader.

3M makes its

name change official

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing of St. Paul has finally made it official-as of mid-April, the company is to be known as 3M and listed under the letter T, for ThreeM, in the New York Stock Exchange tables. According to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, 3M shareholders have called "wondering what happened to their stock." [Electrical Apparatus's annual directory, the ElectroMechanical Bench Reference, has been listing 3M under the letter T since 1986.]

Facility briefs

* Graybar Electric, St. Louis-based distributor of electrical and datacom supplies, has opened a distribution center in Riverview, Fla., near Tampa Bay. The company has also opened an administrative center in the West Port area of St. Louis, a move that allows Graybar to consolidate in one building operations that formerly occupied four separate facilities.

Certification briefs

The John C. Dolph Co. of Monmouth Junction, N.J., maker of epoxies, resins, and varnishes, has been recertified by Bureau Veritas Quality International to ISO 90012000. A two-day audit covered the technical, manufacturing, purchasing, sales, quality control, and customer service departments, as well as maintenance and human resources.

New sales reps

Interface Solutions, Inc., of Lancaster, Pa., has appointed Special Electric Co. of Milwaukee as sales agents for its Voltoid line of electrical insulating papers. Voltoid-formerly known as Duroid-products are insulating papers made from cellulose, aramid fiber, and various polymers designed to produce homogeneous substrates with uniform properties.