Motor firm to celebrate 100 years (December 01, 2004)

Bodine Electric Company will celebrate its 100th anniversary of producing fractional-horsepower electric motors in 2005. The company has been designing and building electric motors almost as long as there have been electric motors.

Brothers Carl and Paul Bodine founded the company in Chicago in 1905. As a pioneer developer and manufacturer of small electric motors for industrial use, the company quickly built a reputation for quality products.

From supplying a dentist with a specially designed motor for an electric tooth drill, the company went through the next half-century generating thousands of motor designs for such diverse applications as movie cameras and projectors, phonographs, jukeboxes, scientific instruments, office equipment, and WWII aircraft fuel pumps.

Bodine was at the forefront of photocopier as well as medical scanner development in the 1950s and ’60s, providing specially designed motors for these demanding new applications.

Bodine’s motor and control products today are found in applications such as printing presses, machine tools, packaging equipment, factory automation, food service equipment, medical devices and laboratory equipment.

Still family-owned, the company offers a wide range of more than 850 stock motors and gearmotors worldwide, including AC, DC and brushless DC. Each motor is complemented by system-matched motion controls. The systems are distributed by a network of Bodine MotionPRO sales reps and authorized distributors.