Sola/Hevi-Duty

The History of Hevi-Duty Electric

Hevi-Duty Electric's early history starts with the Electric Heating Apparatus Company of Newark, New Jersey, in 1915. The company produced small laboratory-type electric furnaces. In 1924, the company was purchased by the North American Company and moved to Wisconsin where it operated in conjunction with the Wisconsin Electric Power Company of Milwaukee. This was an effort to promote the use of electrical energy.

After moving to Wisconsin, Hevi-Duty obtained most of its transformer requirements from the Surges Electric Company, a small Milwaukee-based operation whose principal business was electrical transformers. As Hevi-Duty Electric's business grew, it became more of a factor in the business of Surges Electric. So much so that in the late 1940's, the interests of Surges Electric were purchased by Hevi-Duty. The new transformer group supplied transformers and other related electromagnetic devices to outside customers, as well as furnishing the internal requirements of the furnace manufacturing group. In 1953, the combined operations of transformer and furnace manufacturing were moved to Watertown, Wisconsin.

In 1955, as a result of government action against utility holding companies, the North American Company was dissolved and Hevi-Duty became an operating subsidiary of the Union Electric Company, an electric utility located in St. Louis, Missouri. Union Electric had a commitment to eventually divest itself of Hevi-Duty and in 1956, Hevi-Duty was spun off and became an independent company.

In 1959, Hevi-Duty Electric was acquired by the Basic Products Corporation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin whose principal business was malt for the brewing industry. Because of diminishing business in this area, Basic Products was attempting to enter into the substantial growth business of electrical equipment. After the merger, it was recognized that the transformer portion of the Hevi-Duty Electric business was not realizing its full potential because of the division's heavy emphasis on the industrial heating business. Consequently, in 1962, Hevi-Duty Electric was subdivided into two separate Divisions within the Basic Products Corporation. The transformer manufacturing operation retained the name Hevi-Duty Electric and the furnace manufacturing operation became known as the Hevi-Duty Heating and Equipment Company.

Both divisions did so well that additional manufacturing facilities were required. The Hevi-Duty Heating Equipment Company retained the majority of the manufacturing space at the company's Watertown, Wisconsin location, while the Hevi-Duty Electric Company expanded into a newly-built manufacturing plant in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in the latter part of 1962. The Lake Geneva facilities were used to manufacture small dry-type and machine tool control-transformers rated 15 KVA and below. A limited portion of the Watertown facilities produced the larger transformers with a maximum rating of 2000 KVA.

A change in management at Basic Products Corporation in 1965 led to a corporate name change to Sola Basic Industries. The malt and grain operations were sold as the new company focused on profitable growth in the electrical and electronic equipment manufacturing industries. As sales at Hevi-Duty Electric expanded, additional manufacturing facilities were needed to sustain the growth rate. A new manufacturing facility and headquarters office building was constructed in Goldsboro, North Carolina in mid-1966. The new facility was designed and built for production of small power transformers rated through 10,000 KVA - both in dry type and liquid filled construction. Production began in the new plant late in 1967 while all transformer production at the Watertown, Wisconsin facility ended in 1971.

Continued sales growth in liquid-filled small power transformers made it necessary to plan for additional manufacturing space at Goldsboro. It was decided to remove the low voltage general purpose dry-type transformers, 500 KVA and below, from the Goldsboro plant. Because of market areas and Hevi-Duty Electric's distribution and materials system using its own truck fleet, a new plant would ideally be located between the two primary plants (Lake Geneva, WI and Goldsboro, NC) . Production in Celina, Tennessee started with the low voltage, general purpose dry-type stock units and customer-make units in mid 1974.

In 1977, Sola Basic Industries merged with General Signal Corporation and Hevi-Duty Electric became a unit of General Signal.

A 15,000 square foot, 72 foot high bay addition at Goldsboro was begun in -January, 1979. It contains special processing rooms for heated vacuum dry out, humidity controlled working area, oil processing, and special test equipment. A rail spur into the building enables shipments of large power transformers by rail. A 150 ton crane allows Hevi-Duty to build and ship oil-filled power transformers to 100 MVA (top rating), 230 kV at 750 BIL.

Since that time, Hevi-Duty has undertaken numerous developmental programs relating to mobile transformers and substations, automatic-tapchanging-under-load features in various windings, computerized drafting coordinated with mechanical design, short-circuit forces, magnetic field distribution and transformer testing. A successful entry into the field of remanufacture and upgrade of customer-owned transformers gave Hevi-Duty one of the broadest overall transformer spectrums in the industry.

In 1994 Hevi-Duty Electric and Sola Electric were merged to form a single unit. The power transformer business became a separate division that later became part of Waukesha Electric Systems.

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