Moloney Electric’s focus includes expanding its services and adopting efficiency requirements.

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As Toronto’s Moloney Electric prepares for its 100th anniversary next year, the company says it is poised to expand its presence in the marketplace. The company has previously focused on the Canadian market, President Bob Thompson says.

“We’re about second in the Canadian market for the overall transformer business,” he explains. “We do a fair amount of export to the Caribbean market with key contracts, and we do participate in the U.S. market. That will be our focus for growth over the next two years.”

Until now, he says, the company was very selective in terms of which customers it worked with in the United States, but it will be expanding its focus. “Up until now, we’ve just been a manufacturer of transformers,” he says. “We’ll continue to do that, but also expand on  transformer refurbishment – taking back the dead and bringing it back to life.

“We’re also going to move forward into servicing our customers with whatever service needs they have to support their transformer business, including installation and field service.”

One key factor in Moloney’s  expansion into the United States is new Department of Energy requirements for transformers that will take effect in 2010. “Any new transformer must be more efficient,” Thompson says.

“This will have a significant effect on the North American market. Because the Canadian transformer industry is already being more efficient, we have significant experience providing efficient units. That will help us expand further into the U.S. market.”

Thompson says the company’s design flexibility also sets it apart from competitors. “We’re small enough that we can do special units as well as standard ones,” he says. “We can do short delivery as well as multi-year contracts. We have taken the approach of ‘if we build it, we bury it,” meaning we follow the product to the grave.

“Basically, our motto is ‘all we have to sell is service.’”

Century of Service
Moloney Electric was founded in 1909 in Windsor, Ontario, and was owned by Moloney Electric in St. Louis. A fire destroyed the Windsor plant and it was moved to Toronto in 1920. The company produced its first mobile substation in 1959.

In 1969, the majority of the shares were purchased by a group of employees from Moloney in the United States.

The company expanded to Spruce Grove, Alberta, in 1972 and purchased its Sackville, New Brunswick, plant from General Electric in 1982. In 1994, it became the first transformer manufacturer in North America to achieve ISO 9000 certification.

In 1995, Moloney Electric sold its mobile substation business to Pauwels Transformers in Belgium, and discontinued power transformer manufacturing operations and focused on distribution transformers. In 1996, the company made its first significant export sale to Bangladesh.

The company expanded its Spruce Grove location in 1998 to include a refurbishment area and additional production space.