Atlas Copco Group Turns 140
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. – Quarry-equipment company Atlas Copco is celebrating its 140th anniversary this year.
Company CEO Ronnie Leten began the year-long festivities in February by ringing the opening bell at the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York. Maureen Ellis, an employee celebrating more than 40 years with Atlas Copco in the United States, joined Leten at the event, along with select customers and other company management/stakeholders.
Swedish-based Atlas Copco began in 1873 with products for the railroad industry, diversifying over time with other products. It began acquiring companies outside Sweden in 1956 with Arpic Engineering, a Belgian compressor company.
The growth of Atlas Copco is also widely accredited to the founding Wallenberg family. The company now serves companies in more than 170 countries.
Atlas Copco first came to the U.S. in 1950. Today Atlas Copco has 109 locations in the United States alone, representing 1.7 million square feet of manufacturing, production, distribution and office space, and employing more than 4,600 people and works with hundreds of carefully selected distributors. North America operations as a whole generated more than $2.8 billion in annual revenue last year.
The company’s U.S. interests include its equipment for quarrying and stone removal, serviced by the Atlas Copco Construction and Mining Center in Commerce City.
“From our beginning in 1873 as a manufacturer of products for the railroad industry, we have expanded and adapted to hold world-leading positions in compressed air and gas equipment, construction and mining equipment, industrial tools and assembly systems,” said Jim Levitt, president of Atlas Copco North America in Parsippany, N.J.. “The United States is the group’s largest single market and North America contributes about one-fifth of our overall revenue.
“The best way to celebrate 140 years in business is to acknowledge the customers that make it possible. We sincerely thank each and every one of them for their business.”
As part of the anniversary celebration, Atlas Copco North America donated $60,000 to charity: water, a global non-profit dedicated to bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. The donation brings Atlas Copco’s total charity: water giving to $161,000 since 2010, with the company’s employee-run Water for All organization donating more than $239,000 since the program’s inception.
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