Kewaunee Scientific history

In 1929 the Adrian plant was electrified and a blower system installed.

By 1932 the Adrian plant was producing metal laboratory furniture.

In April 1942 the company rented its empty buildings in Kewaunee to the Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering Corporation, which was beginning to build ships for the war effort.

In 1946, Kewaunee began to expand its manufacturing facilities and intensify its sales efforts in all of these fields.

In 1949 the Adrian plant was expanded with the construction of an engineering building and the establishment of a stainless steel fabricating operation there at a cost of $50,000.

In the spring of 1954 a site for the manufacture of wood furniture was selected in Statesville, North Carolina.

In October 1957 the Statesville Company was formed to provide warehouse space in Statesville.

In 1958 a pilot metal furniture operation was begun in Statesville.

In 1959 the name of Technical Furniture, Inc., was changed to Kewaunee Technical Furniture Company, and it became a North Carolina corporation operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of Kewaunee Manufacturing.

Kemrock tops were considered the best available, until Kewaunee introduced the Kemresin top in 1963.

By 1964 all of the company's metal furniture was being produced in Adrian and all of its wood furniture, plus Kemresin, at Statesville.

In mid-1967 management began discussions with various brokerage houses for a secondary stock offering.

In 1972 Kewaunee acquired the Angle Steel Division from Gulf and Western Corporation.

By mid-1974 the country was experiencing inflation and a recession, and Kewaunee was having problems profitably fulfilling its long-term fixed-price contracts.

Angle Steel, located in Plainwell, Michigan, was looked on as a diversification opportunity, and by 1975 it was producing metal farm buildings, or pole barns, as well as other products.

In 1978 Kewaunee purchased the assets of Electronic Finishes, Inc. (EFI), a company that had gone bankrupt doing development work in applying acrylic coatings to particleboard and curing the finish with radiation from an electron beam.

The 1979-80 recession strongly affected the company's Angle Steel Division.

Sales for 1984 were $53.8 million, with net income of $3.1 million.

In 1985 Kewaunee closed and sold its Angle Steel plant in Plainwell, Michigan, and moved production of its Sturdilite product line of flexible furniture to Lockhart, Texas.

A delayed start-up of the transferred operations in Statesville resulted in a net loss of $7.7 million in 1987 (ending April 30). One of the major problems was that North Carolina workers did not have the metal fabrication skills and experience that workers in Adrian had.

With a well-received new generation of modular workstations, Kewaunee managed to eke out a profit of $786,000 on sales of $68.6 million in 1988.

A few months after Kewaunee reported a 70 percent decline in earnings to $472,000 on sales of $74 million (up seven percent) for 1990, William Bartlett resigned unexpectedly.

By 1996 Kewaunee was showing signs of revitalization.