Crescent Electric Supply Moves into Ohio with Acquisition of Northwest Controls

Crescent Electric Supply Co., East Dubuque, Ill., has expanded into Ohio with the purchase of Northwest Controls, Defiance, Ohio.

Northwest Controls has served the automation industry for more than 30 years. The company's primary focus is on automation and control products, systems, and services.

Northwest Controls was founded in 1971 in Defiance, Ohio, and has grown to nine branch locations throughout the state of Ohio. The company has branches in Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Lima, Sandusky and Toledo.

Crescent Electric, with 124 distribution facilities in 25 states, was ranked eighth on Electrical Wholesaling magazine's 2002 Top 250 listing, with $609 million in 2001 sales.

The acquisition is an extension of Crescent Electric's existing automation business, said Dick Schmid, the company's vice president of marketing. The two companies have several standard electrical lines in common as well as some Square D automation products.

In 1995, Northwest Controls was named Square D/Modicon's exclusive High Tech Distributor for the state of Ohio.

"There are true synergies available here, and we intend to bring them to our end users," said Marty Burbridge, Crescent Electric's executive vice president and general manager.

Crescent Electric has expanded into several areas in the past year. In 2002, the company acquired Missouri Valley Electric Co., one of Kansas City's oldest electrical supply houses. Also in 2002, Crescent Electric purchased Kennedy Electric Supply, Jamaica, N.Y.; and Computer Systems Products (CSP), a voice-data distributor in Plymouth, Minn.

Louie Scheiderer is the new Ohio district manager.