Date: 07/10/1986
FMC Corporation is an American chemical manufacturing company headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company was originally founded by chemist John Bean in 1883 as the Bean Spray Pump Company in Los Gatos, California, producing piston pumps for insecticides. In 1928, Bean Spray Pump purchased two companies: the Anderson-Barngrover Co. and Sprague-Sells Co. At this time the company changed its name to Food Machinery Corporation, and began using the initials FMC. In 1941 the company FMC received a contract to design and build amphibious landing vehicles tracked vehicles for the United States War Department, and afterwards the company continued to diversify its products. FMC currently employs some 5,500 people worldwide, and had gross revenues of US$3.4 billion in 2011.
History
The Bean Spray Pump Company
Founded in 1883 as the Bean Spray Pump Company in Los Gatos, California by chemist John Bean. The company’s first product was a piston pump. Bean invented the pump to spray insecticide on the many fruit orchards in the area. A Bean sprayer was on display at the Forbes Mill museum in Los Gatos until its closure in 2014. Bean Avenue in downtown Los Gatos is named after John Bean.
FMC
In 1928, Bean Spray Pump purchased two companies: the Anderson-Barngrover Co. and Sprague-Sells Co. The Anderson-Barngrover Co. manufactured a sealed can rotary pressure sterilizer and the Sprague-Sells Co. manufactured canning machinery. At this time the company changed its name to Food Machinery Corporation, and began using the initials FMC.
FMC received a contract to design and build amphibious landing vehicles tracked vehicles for the United States War Department in 1941. FMC ranked 64th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.
In 1961, the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Ships issued bids for a high performance amphibious ship-to-shore cargo carrier capable of moving over water at 35 knots (approx. 40 mph) and over ground at the same speed. It had to carry five tons of cargo across water, through the surf, across the beach, and inland. The vehicle also had to be quickly loaded and unloaded under combat conditions. FMC’s Ordnance Division in San José, California built and tested two prototypes named LVHX2 Landing Vehicle, Hydrofoil for the U.S. Marine Corps. These were the first amphibious landing vehicles to make use of hydrofoils for high speed ship-to-shore operation. Although the LVHX2 never went into production, the Marine Corps used the prototypes in their continuous research and development program to develop better equipment for amphibious assault operations.
FMC later built the M113 (APC) Armored Personnel Carrier and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle as well as the XR311 at its former facility in Santa Clara, California. It also purchased the rights to manufacture some foreign military hardware, including the Brazilian EE-9 Cascavel, under license.Bean also manufactured fire fighting equipment in the 1960s through the 1980s under the FMC and the Bean names.
In 1972, personnel were transferred from ordnance to designing and building RVs (motorcoaches). The oil crisis and high prices led production to end after 5 years.
FMC also produced fire truck fire pumps and pumper bodies. It had an OEM arrangement with LTI (Ladder Towers Inc.) to market aerial ladders. In the early 1980s the fire apparatus division of FMC tried to expand its role in aerial ladders on fire trucks, leveraging the Link-Belt crane division. FMC was ultimately unsuccessful in its expansion into production of aerial ladders. The FMC Fire Apparatus division was shut down in 1990.
FMC sells chemical products used by beef and poultry processors to reduce pathogens, such a E. coli and salmonella, on uncooked beef and poultry.FMC obtained a patent on a method for sanitizing fowl that have been killed, plucked and eviscerated by contacting the fowl with an aqueous acid solution and maintaining that contact for a time sufficient to sanitize the fowl.
Spinoffs
C was the owner of the Gunderson metal works in Springfield, Oregon USA, during that period it was known as the ‘Marine and Rail Equipment Division of FMC’ (MRED), it was sold in 1985 to The Greenbrier Companies.
In the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s (decade), FMC Corporation began spinning several of its divisions into separate companies, including United Defense and FMC Technologies, and selling its divisions, including its automotive division to Snap-on Equipment, a division of Snap-on, in 1996. Snap-on renamed the division John Bean Company. Bolens was sold to Troy-Built in 1988.
Recently
- In 2001, FMC spun off its energy, airport, and food equipment businesses into a separate company named FMC Technologies, Inc.
- In 2006 FMC Corporation celebrated 75 years being listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
- Pierre Brondeau has been named President and Chief Executive Officer succeeding William G. Walter, effective January 1, 2010. Mr. Brondeau was formerly with Dow Chemical and prior to that Rohm & Haas.
- A former FMC site in San Jose, California is the location for Avaya Stadium, a new soccer-specific stadium for the San Jose Earthquakes.
- In 2015, FMC completed the sale of its Alkali Chemicals business and acquisition of Cheminova, a multinational crop protection company, which aligns with the company’s corporate strategy to focus its portfolio on agriculture, health and nutrition end markets on agriculture, health and nutrition end markets, and lithium technologies.