Lowrance Electronics history

Another refinement, introduced in 1960, was a back-lighted faceplate, that allowed the Lo-K-Tor to be used in the pre-dawn darkness, a time of day favored by the serious fisherman.

The company received a boost in 1964 when their product was featured in Field and Stream, the bible of the sports fisherman.

But in 1981, another company, Vexlar, introduced the first liquid crystal display (LCD) device.

Lowrance maintained its industry lead, and by 1983 the company's sales neared $28.5 million, providing a net income of $1.4 million.

Lowrance, which continued to hold the edge on shortness of pulse length, entered the LCD market, producing, in 1986, the industry's first true high resolution LCD displays.

Since 1991, the company has also produced Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receivers, including the company's hand-held Global Map series, that provide highly accurate navigational assistance to boaters, hikers, hunters, recreational aviators, and others.

The lawsuit, and a market crippled first by an extended winter and then by flooding throughout large regions of the country, took the company into the red again, for a loss of $700,000 despite a rise in revenues to $81.3 million in 1994.

GPS sales rose quickly, from 13 percent of the company's revenues to nearly one-fourth of sales by 1996, boosting total sales to nearly $95 million.