Schweitzer Engineering To Expand

A Pullman-based manufacturer of protective relays for the utilities industry plans to increase its work force by 40 percent and add 30,000 square feet to its production facilities.

Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Inc., (SEL) will add 65 people to its current 165-person work force. The company will hire engineers, technicians, marketing and customer service personnel, clerical staff, a graphics designer and assemblers over the next 10 months.

“We are growing from a domestic company to a global one, as the reputation of SEL for quality, customer service, price and features spreads worldwide,” Ed Schweitzer, SEL president, said in a prepared statement. “At the same time, we are busy inventing new products and services which we believe will delight our traditional utility customers as well as new customers in other related industries.”

SEL was founded in 1982 after Schweitzer developed a digital relay as part of his Ph.D. research project at Washington State University.

The project led to the manufacture of the world’s first all-digital protective relays for the electric utility industry. The relays trip circuit breakers when problems develop in power lines or other electrical apparatus.

SEL built its first building in 1985, when it employed 11 people. Today, the company occupies 62,000 square feet of space at the Whitman County Industrial Park.

Seventy percent of SEL’s stock is held by Ed and Mary Schweitzer. The other 30 percent is held by an employee trust through an employee stock ownership plan. Eventually, company officials say, the employee trust will own 100 percent of the company.

, DataTimes