Carrier Corporation

History

Willis Carrier is credited with inventing modern air conditioning in 1902. In 1915, Carrier and six other engineers pooled $32,600 to form the Carrier Engineering Corporation. They purchased their first factory in 1920, in Newark, New Jersey.

The corporation bearing his name marketed its air conditioner to the residential market in the 1950s, which led to formerly sparsely populated areas such as the American Southwest becoming home to sprawling suburbs.

In 1955, Carrier merged with Affiliated Gas Equipment, Inc., which owned the Bryant Heater Co., Day & Night Water Heater Co., and Payne Furnace & Supply Co.

Carrier Corporation was acquired by United Technologies Corporation (UTC) in July 1979. Prior to the acquisition by UTC, Carrier Corporation was known as the Carrier Air Conditioning Company.

International Comfort Products (ICP), headquartered in Lewisburg, Tennessee, was acquired by Carrier in 1999. In the 1990s Carrier stopped using the "Day & Night" brand (which was the "D" in the BDP division, or Bryant-Day & Night-Payne) but it was revived in 2006 by ICP.

In 2001 Carrier was the "world's largest manufacturer of air-conditioning, heating, and refrigerator equipment" with a "total employment of 42,600" and a revenue of $8.9 billion. Carrier announced that it would be closing its DeWitt (Onondaga Co) plant. This led to the layoff of 1000 employees.

In early 2008, Carrier acquired Environmental Market Solutions, Inc. (EMSI), an environmental and green building consulting company based in the United States. The company has received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the US Green Building Council for its factories in Charlotte, NC and Huntington, IN (2009), Shanghai, China (2010), and Monterrey, Mexico (2011).

In September 2013, Carrier, Otis, and United Technologies Fire and Security were combined into one subsidiary.

In January 2016, Carrier announced it would lay off an unspecified number of employees at its research and development division in the town of DeWitt, New York.

In February 2016, Carrier announced it would close its Indianapolis factory and move production to Monterrey, Mexico. HVAC Systems and Services North America president Chris Nelson cited "ongoing cost and pricing pressures" and Carrier's "existing infrastructure and a strong supplier base" in Mexico, saying that the move would allow the company "to operate more cost effectively." The Carrier spokesperson told the crowd that there would be no immediate impact on jobs, that the move would take place over three years, and no jobs would be affected until mid-2017, with the move to be completed by the end of 2019.

Over the November 2016 Thanksgiving holiday weekend, President Elect Donald Trump tweeted that he was in talks with Carrier Management to keep the factory in Indiana and not move to Mexico.

On November 30, 2016, Carrier announced that it had negotiated an agreement with President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence to continue manufacturing gas furnaces in Indianapolis, in addition to retaining engineering and headquarters staff, preserving more than 1,000 jobs in Indianapolis. The agreement included a state incentive package of about $7 million over 10 years. The number of jobs saved was later revised down to 800.

Syracuse, New York campus

Willis Carrier moved his facilities from New Jersey to Syracuse, New York in the 1930s. During the late 20th century, when it was acquired by UTC, it was Central New York State's largest manufacturer. Due to increasing labor and union costs in the Central New York area, Carrier has substantially downsized its presence in Syracuse, with manufacturing work being moved to a variety of domestic and international locations. Meanwhile, managerial employees were moved closer to UTC's Connecticut corporate headquarters which represented a challenge to the local economy. Over the course of 2011 the majority of the manufacturing buildings of the Syracuse campus were demolished at a cost of nearly $14 million. Despite the loss of manufacturing jobs, the suburban Syracuse Campus, in DeWitt, New York, remained the primary engineering and design center for Carrier products, with over 1,000 employees and contractors on site.

In 1980, Carrier was allowed to name the Carrier Dome, the football and basketball arena at Syracuse University, after Mel Holm, the company's then-CEO chair of the university's Board of Trustees, gave the university $2.75 million toward the facility's construction. Despite being named for an air conditioner manufacturer, the Carrier Dome is not air conditioned.

Brands

Carrier markets the brand names Weathermaster commercial units, Centurion rooftop units, and Aquazone water- and ground-source heat pumps, as well as the Infinity, Performance, and Comfort Series for residential applications.

Carrier also owns Carrier Transicold, a manufacturer of transport refrigeration systems nicknamed "reefers".

Operations

It has U.S. manufacturing facilities in Indianapolis, Indiana, for residential and commercial furnaces and air handlers; Collierville, Tennessee, for residential condensing units and heat pumps; Tyler, Texas, for residential package units and commercial condensing and package units; Monterrey, Mexico for evaporator coils; and Charlotte, North Carolina, for accessories and chillers.

Carrier Air Conditioning's head office in Australia is in Dingley Village, near Melbourne.