NGWA member Grundfos, a global manufacturer of advanced pump solutions and water technologies, announced on October 12 the company is celebrating the 50th anniversary of operations in the United States.
The almost 80-year-old Danish company began U.S. operations in 1973 and now has 13 offices and manufacturing facilities, and nearly 1700 employees.
“Grundfos began with the extraordinary vision of Poul Due Jensen, who sought to meet the needs of his first client and then made his life’s work to create solutions to his clients’ water pump needs,” says Ansell Sims, president of Grundfos U.S.
“Celebrating 50 years in the United States, we carry forward this legacy, always pushing the envelope in terms of innovation, sustainability, and efficiency. A heartfelt congratulations to the entire Grundfos family!”
In 1944, founder Poul Due Jensen began Grundfos out of his basement in Denmark. When he couldn’t find a quality electric pump for a client’s small automatic waterworks project, he developed his own. The company quickly expanded across Europe and other countries with the goal of opening sales and production operations in the United States.
In 1973, Einar Cook, a Danish-American from Fresno, California, visited the Grundfos office in Denmark and was amazed at the quality of the deep well turbine pumps and returned to the U.S. to use them on his farm. Cook then imported a few pumps to sell in his farm equipment dealership and the U.S. business was born.
Over the next 40 years, the company opened offices in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Kansas City, Kansas, and expanded the Fresno, California, office. In 2006, Grundfos began a transformative time of growth by acquiring marquee brands like PACO, Peerless, and Yeomans. From there, Grundfos opened its PES facility in Brookshire, Texas, in 2009 and a water technology center in Fresno in 2011. The following year, Grundfos established the U.S. headquarters in Chicago and launched the water conservation project in Fresno.
In 2022, Grundfos relocated its U.S. headquarters to a newly built, first-of-its-kind, environmentally sustainable building in Brookshire, Texas. The 45,000-square-foot facility is the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified v4 Platinum new construction in Texas, according to the Green Building Information Gateway. The building uses zero fossil fuels, harvests and stores 873,183 gallons of rainwater annually, and provides 62 percent total energy cost savings compared to a typical commercial building.
“To Grundfos every drop of water symbolizes a promise for a better future,” expressed Poul Due Jensen, CEO of Grundfos and grandson of the founder. “Each day, we’re driven by a commitment to making a positive difference for our customers and communities by addressing the globe’s most critical water and climate concerns with groundbreaking, energy-efficient solutions.”
Grundfos USA supports nonprofits like Water Mission, a nonprofit engineering organization that has helped more than 5.7 million people access safe water. For 12 years, Grundfos has hosted the annual Walk for Water event to raise awareness about the global water crisis and increase donations to Water Mission.