GEA Mechanical Equipment US Inc history

1918 – Large proportion of foreign investments lost in the First World War.

In 1919, Balcke agreed to help him establish his own business, which Happel started one year later in a small workshop in Bochum.

In 1925, Otto Happel acquired the Metallwerk Westfalia GmbH in Bochum, a company that had made equipment for him earlier.

In 1928, a new large factory and a laboratory for thermodynamic and aerodynamic tests were built on a property in Wanne-Eickel near Bochum that was large enough for further growth.

In 1934, the German Patent Office granted a patent for the elliptical finned tube with turbulators.

In 1935, Otto Happel together with the German engineer Doctor Kurt Lang, started working on air-cooled condensers for stationary steam turbines used for electricity generation.

In 1939, GEA commissioned the first pilot project using an air-cooled condenser for stationary steam turbines at the Waltrop Colliery in the Ruhr.

The day after Christmas in 1948, GEA's founder Otto Happel died.

The year 1950 saw two GEA firsts.

In 1953, two new subsidiaries were founded: the GEA W&auml®eaustauscher Berlin GmbH in Berlin for heat exchanger production, and the GEA Konvektorenbau Happel KG in Wanne-Eickel.

In 1958, the GEA Gesellschaft für Luftkondensation mbH was founded in Bochum to develop air-cooled condensers for steam and gas turbines--a growing market at that time.

As one result, large orders were placed by companies from the petrochemical industry for oil refineries starting in 1959.

In 1962, GEA established a joint venture in Glasgow, Ireland--James Howden-GEA Ltd.--which included a production facility in Northern Ireland.

After founding its first foreign subsidiary in Austria in 1963, a new German factory was opened one year later in Obershausen in Hessen, thereby doubling its production capacity.

When natural draught wet cooling towers were introduced to German power plants in 1965, GEA decided to market this new technology which fit well into its product line, especially for the utility industry.

GEA Konvektorenbau developed water-to-water heat pumps in 1974, and before long it dominated the European market for heat pumps for almost a decade.

In 1979, GEA diversified into the food and process engineering market by taking over the Eduard Ahlborn GmbH in Hildesheim, northern Germany, a firm specialized in plate heat exchangers used for thermal treatment of milk, fruit juices, and beer.

With R&D shifting towards energy and environmental engineering after the two oil crises, GEA's Environmental Engineering Division began developing heat transfer systems for the removal of sulfur and nitrogen from the emissions released by coal-based power stations in 1983.

In 1990, another DM 280 million was raised for the new GEA AG through a capital increase.

In 1992, activities were extended into eastern Europe when GEA purchased a Hungarian engineering firm specialized in dry cooling for power stations and a Czech company active in the fields of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

1994 – Start of a fundamental realignment of the MG Group turning it into an innovative technology group.

In 1995, when GEA celebrated the group's 75th anniversary, sales had surpassed DM 4 billion, generated by more than 17,000 employees.

2000 – Metallgesellschaft AG becomes mg technologies ag.

2004 – Disposal of the Chemicals division: sale of four of the five business units in Dynamit Nobel AG.

2007 – Sale of Plant Engineering Segment.