Flanders' History

In 1962, Roy Patterson and Bud Havens purchased the Evansville, Indiana headquartered Flanders Electric and retained the name Flanders. The original shop was located at 1301 E. Missouri St, in 1979, a new shop was built a few blocks away at 1050 E. Maryland St. There were six expansions over the next ten years to keep up with customer demands. In 1974, Roy and Bud's sons, Dave Patterson and Jim Havens bought stock in Flanders and became co-owners. Over the next few years, the 2nd and 3rd shifts were added in order to provide the service our customers had come to expect.

In 1981, Flanders built a new modern facility in the Burch Industrial park on Baumgart Rd. When the new building reached capacity, it became necessary to remodel and reopen the Maryland St. shop for part of the repair services. As our reputation for excellence in the repair business grew, so did our expertise in engineering services. The Engineering Division opened it's own office and custom controls fabrication department in the Airport Industrial Park on Hedden Rd. This group has since moved to Flanders new headquarters facility.

The Marion, IL shop (formerly known as Giles Armature) was purchased in December of 1985. The shop began business with approximately 12 employees and specialized in repair of strip and underground mining motors. As of this writing, the Marion shop has in excess of 30 employees working two shifts. They have expanded their expertise in general industry, utilities, pipelines, quarries as well as switchgear and custom controls.

The Longview shop was originally purchased in April of 1994 and located in White Oak, TX. It was opened at the White Oak site with approximately 10 employees. In the spring of 1997, a new building with forty acres of property was pruchased in order to accommodate the rapidly growing business, which consisted primarily of mining, utilities, paper mills, and general industry. As of this date, the Longview shop has more than 70 employees operating on two shifts.

Customer demand for quality full-service center in the western states resulted in a shop in Casper, WY being opened during the fall of 1998. Initially, the Casper location was primarily involved in field services. Within a short time, a new much larger facility was opened to provide the full gamut of services needed by our customers. The Casper service center presently has approximately thirty employees operating two shifts. Flanders also has a Western Region Account Rep. located in Fort Collins, CO, and field engineers in Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming.

A field service division was opened at Mulberry, FL in the spring of 2000. Once again, within a couple of years increased customer demand necessitated that a much larger and capable service center be opened. A new facility in Lakeland, FL was opened in the summer of 2004 with the capacity to serve our customers needs well into the future. The Lakeland service center has approximately forty employees operating two shifts.

In 2007, Flanders expanded again with the purchase of a 250,000 square foot facility adjacent to the Baumgart Road corporate headquarters. An expanded coil manufacturing department moved into this facility in June. All corporate functions and our engineering division moved into the new offices in August. Work is currently underway to move new motor manufacturing and assembly into this building. This expansion will allow Flanders to expand production capabilities and enhance the efficiency of our processes for even more cost effective services.

Flanders has grown since 1947, from a two-man motor repair shop to over 500 employees and more than 700,000 square feet of shop office and inventory space.