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The Crenlo story began in early 1951 when three St. Paul businessmen, fulfilled a dream of owning their own business when they purchased a small manufacturing plant in northwest Rochester, Minnesota. The 40,000 square foot facility had been left vacant the year before when a local electrical supply manufacturer had dissolved operations. The three proud new owners, John Enblom, who became President and General Manager, W.W. Lowther, who was Vice President of Engineering and Sales, R.R. Cresswell, who was Production Manager, named their fledgling firm "Crenlo" by combining the first two letters of each man’s last name.
On March 1,1951, when Crenlo was born, the three men had a "tar paper shack" filled with metal fabricating machinery, a name, but no customers. Crenlo needed a product to produce, Enblom immediately called on a contact he had made at Caterpillar, Inc. in Peoria, Illinois, and with great diligence and assurance to Caterpillar that Crenlo could indeed manufacture tractor cabs, he received Crenlo’s very first order for 500 units; in July 1951 the first Crenlo-made cab was produced.
During the 50’s, Crenlo’s production of tractor cabs expanded to include not only several models of Caterpillar, but incorporated units for others such as John Deere, Shield Bantam and American Coleman. The first non-cab contract came in 1957 when IBM Rochester asked Crenlo to recondition business machines. The same year an addition of 14,000 square feet, the first of many building expansions, was begun. In the early 60’s, Crenlo became actively involved in the manufacture of housings and cabinets with several contracts from 3M.
In 1967, Crenlo was purchased by and became a subsidiary of the General Fireproofing Company ( which later became GF Corporation ) headquartered in Youngstown, OH. Crenlo’s growth continued necessitating the construction of a second plant located on the northwest edge of Rochester. Built in three phases and completed in 1975, Crenlo Plant 2 contains approximately 420,000 square feet.
In January 1975, GF acquired the EMCOR product line from Borg-Warner Corporation. EMCOR, which stands for "Elgin Metal Formers Corporation", like Crenlo itself, was founded in 1951. EMCOR was a pioneer in the design and manufacture of standard enclosures for the electronics market. Today EMCOR remains a prominent leader in the standard, modified standard and custom enclosure market, offering one of the largest selections of catalog enclosure products and components in the industry. EMCOR prides itself in the extensive design engineering and sales support staff that it provides to its customers.
During 1984, GF expressed a desire to divest their interest in Crenlo and redirect their financial resources more toward their core business, being the office furniture marketplace. On August 1, 1985, a three-member team of senior Crenlo management, successfully completed a leveraged buyout of the firm. Over the next 14 years, Crenlo grew to one of the largest privately held companies in the state of Minnesota, finding itself associated with many customers found on the "Fortune 100" list of top companies.
Over the years, Crenlo has prided itself with its attention to quality and detail. In a continuing effort to that regard, Crenlo was formally ISO 9001 certified in June of 1996.
On August 1, 1999, Crenlo went live on the "Baan" Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. This change in technology was a major transformation in the way that Crenlo conducts business.
On October 4, 1999, the company entered another new era with the sale of Crenlo to Dover Diversified, Inc. located in Waukesha, WI, a subsidiary of Dover Corporation. Dover is an over $5 billion publicly held multi-national, diversified, manufacturing corporation comprised of some 53 different companies. Under this new ownership, Crenlo has continued to enhance its high standards and has made new advancements in terms of technology, equipment and processes.
In January of 2001, Crenlo’s "EMCOR" Quality Enclosures Group, introduced "isoNet", a new line of "Advanced Network Enclosures". These innovative enclosures meet the diverse and exacting needs present in today’s professional network packaging environment.
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