New Jersey Natural Gas Company history

1951: County Gas acquires gas assets of Jersey Central Power & Light.

By the end of 1953 NJNG completed the conversion to natural gas and the manufacturing facilities of the "town gas" era were closed down.

By 1962, with nearly 150,000 customers, it reached the $2 million mark.

On the supply side, the company invested in new LP plants, then in 1975 established an exploration and production subsidiary, New Jersey Natural Resources Company, to find new supplies of natural gas.

Williams was replaced as president by James T. Dolan in January 1978, the same year that NJNG was able for the first time in seven years to add new customers and reinstate its marketing operation. Its exploration activities also were beginning to succeed when in 1978 its subsidiary discovered natural gas.

Involved in a variety of ventures, NJNG reorganized in early 1982.

The first deliveries of Canadian gas through the Boundary agreement arrived in November 1984.

Downes had been with the company since 1985 and risen to the rank of chief financial officer.

In 1991 Abrams passed away at the age of 81, and in that same year another founder, Irving Koerner, died at the age of 84.

In 1999 NJR and a subsidiary of General Electric agreed to market fuel cell technology to NJR's residential and small business customers, becoming the exclusive distributor of GE's MicroGen unit.