Qualitrol

Early Days

George Ford was the founder of Qualitrol. Mr. Ford, born in 1907 in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, and son of Thomas Henry Ford and Rachel Mary Jones, was a private investor, sportsman, and philanthropist. His family moved to Rochester, New York when he was a child, where he completed his secondary education and then graduated as an engineer from the University of Rochester.

At the age of 38, he left his position as Vice President of Engineering at the Rochester Manufacturing Company to establish a new company when he became aware of a major deficiency in the manufacturing industry of heavy electronic transformers and generators of diesel engines. He identified the risks of unexpected accidents while using gas and flame without protective devices.

Using seed money from his brother in law, Mort Watters, and from his mother-in-law, Rose Gavin, Mr. Ford decided to build a company to fill the need for monitoring and controlling devices for the electrical transformers industry. Thus, in 1945 Mr. Ford founded Qualitrol Corporation in Fairport, New York, and began to provide the electric utility industry with protective devices and with monitoring systems for transmission and distribution. Mr. Ford opened a branch of Qualitrol in Waynesboro, Tennessee to manufacture valves. Later, Mr. Ford bought the Microcontrol in St. Louis, Missouri, a manufacturer of thermostats, and the Dynapar Corporation in Gurney, Illinois a manufacturer of digital controls. Finally, in the late 1960s, Mr. Ford sold all of his business interests to devote more time to his love of sports.

Danaher Acquisition

Qualitrol LLC traces its roots to 1986, when Danaher Corporation acquired Qualitrol. Within two years of Danaher's founding in 1984, Danaher Corporation acquired 12 companies as part of a strategy to enter the manufacturing business. Thus, Qualitrol became part of Danaher's instrumentation unit, which included Gilbarco Veeder-Root's underground fuel storage sensors, Dynapar's motion sensors and Qualitrol's pressure and temperature measurement instruments, used on the electrical transformer industry. Danaher spun off several subsidiaries, including Qualitrol, in 2016 to create Fortive.

Fortive

Qualitrol officially became part of Fortive in July, 2016.

Corporate Affairs

At the end of 2007, Qualitrol started to collaborate with Neoptix Inc. Headquartered in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, Neoptix is manufacturer of fiber optic temperature sensors. Initially, Qualitrol and Neoptix worked together on the integration of data collected simultaneously from traditional methods of temperature measurement and from optical direct hot-spot sensors, while developing and producing new solutions for on-line condition monitoring for the electric transmission and distribution markets. Subsequently, Neoptix became a sole subsidiary of Qualitrol.

In 2010, Qualitrol acquired Iris Power. Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, Iris Power is a supplier of on-line partial discharge testing of stator winding insulation in large motors and generators. Qualitrol purchased Iris power from subsidiaries of Koch Chemical Technology Group, LLC, a multinational from Wichita, Kansas, United States. Iris Power's fleet of portable and continuous instruments, and monitoring systems that are integrated into a power plants Distributed Control System (DCS) or a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), brought to Qualitrol a close strategic fit directed to assisting Qualitrol's utility customers, from electrical generation to transmission and distribution.

Divisions

Asset Protection

Transmission and Distribution

Condition Monitoring

Global Operations

Headquartered in Fairport, New York, United States, the company also has manufacturing facilities in Belfast, Northern Ireland; Glasgow, United Kingdom; Quebec City, Quebec, Canada; Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. The Belfast facility focuses on Qualitrol Instruments and the Glasgow facility develops Qualitrol DMS. The Quebec City unit operates under Neoptix and the Mississauga unit operates under Iris Power. Though each location specializes in distinct areas of the Qualitrol, the projects are worked on by teams in multiple locations.

Qualitrol adheres to the following international organizations:

Headquarters Expansion

At the end of 2011, Qualitrol began the expansion of its current production facility in Fairport, New York, United States, to 30,000 square feet. The expansion proposal was submitted to the Conservation Board of the town of Perinton, New York, United States, and will take place in two phases, each phase at 15,000 square feet. Although there is no timeline for Phase 2, the Phase 1 of the expansion project is expected to be completed at the end of 2012.

Subsidiaries

Executive Management