Parker Hannifin

Parker-Hannifin Corporation, originally Parker Appliance Company, usually referred to as just Parker, is an American corporation specializing in motion and control technologies. Its corporate headquarters are in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, in Greater Cleveland (with a Cleveland mailing address).<ref>"CERTIFICATE OF PROPERTY INSURANCE". Parker Hannifin. March 28, 2012. Retrieved on December 25, 2012. "Parker Hannifin Corporation 6035 Parkland Blvd Cleveland OH 44124-4141 USA".</ref><ref>"2010 CENSUS – CENSUS BLOCK MAP: Mayfield Heights city, OH" (Template:Webarchive) U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on December 25, 2012.</ref>

The company was founded in 1917 and has been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange since December 9, 1964. The firm is one of the largest companies in the world in motion control technologies, including aerospace, climate control, electromechanical, filtration, fluid and gas handling, hydraulics, pneumatics, process control, and sealing and shielding. Parker employs about 61,000 people globally.

In 2024, the company was ranked 216 in the Fortune 500.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

1917–1950

Arthur L. Parker founded the firm as the Parker Appliance Company in Ohio around 1917 or 1918.<ref name="Zerega"/><ref name="Alexander">Template:Cite news</ref> In its early years, it built pneumatic brake systems for buses, trucks and trains.<ref name="Zerega">Template:Cite news</ref> In 1919, Parker's truck slid over a cliff, causing the company to lose its entire inventory and forcing the founder to return to his previous job. Nonetheless, he restarted Parker Appliance Company in 1924.<ref name="Vault">Template:Cite book</ref>

File:Copy of early 20th century photograph, an aerial view, showing the plant from the south looking north. Photo owned by the Parker- Hannifin Corporation. - Cleveland-Chandler HAER OHIO,18-CLEV,25G-11.tif

In 1935, Art Parker relocated his headquarters into an expanded Euclid Ave location on the east side of Cleveland.

By 1927, the firm had expanded into airplanes. For his flight across the Atlantic Ocean, Charles Lindbergh requested Parker parts be used in the construction of his aircraft the Spirit of St. Louis.<ref name="Alexander"/> The firm contributed the system that linked the aircraft's 16 fuel tanks.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

During World War II, Parker experienced a boom in business as the U.S. Air Force's primary supplier of valves and fluid connectors.<ref name="Alexander"/> By 1943, the firm employed 5,000 Cleveland, Ohio, residents. After Arthur Parker's death in 1945<ref name="Krupa">Template:Cite news</ref> and the end of the war, the company neared bankruptcy due to the sudden drop in demand. Arthur Parker's wife, Helen Parker, assumed control of the company and prevented its liquidation.<ref name="Salpukas">Template:Cite news</ref> She hired new management staff and directed the company's focus back to civilian manufacturing.<ref name="Krupa"/>

1950s–1960s

In the early 1950s, the firm's executives set a goal to make Parker, as The New York Times put it, "the General Electric of fluid power", a goal it generally achieved in the coming decades.<ref name="Salpukas"/> In 1957, the company purchased Hannifin, founded by Arthur Hannifin in 1917, a producer of valve and cylinder products, and changed its name to Parker Hannifin.<ref name="Krupa"/> Many more acquisitions followed, with the company reaching 40 acquisitions by the year 1979.<ref name="Salpukas"/>

In 1953, Arthur Parker's son Patrick S. Parker began working full-time at the company.<ref name="Sloane">Template:Cite news</ref> He rose to become its president in 1968,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and served as CEO from 1971 to 1983 and as chairman from 1977 to 1999. During and after his tenure, the firm grew dramatically, with revenues rising from $197 million in 1968 to over $7 billion in 2005.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in 1964, under the ticker symbol PH.<ref name="CWRU">Template:Cite web</ref> In 1966, the company joined the Fortune 500.<ref name="Vault"/> The company designed parts for the craft used in NASA's first crewed Moon landing in 1969.<ref name="Alexander"/>

1970s–1990s

An economic downturn in 1970 forced the company to expand beyond its focus on hydraulic systems. In the following years it began to expand into the automotive aftermarket, considered a more stable industry. The company also directed itself toward growth in aerospace, acquiring companies that created flight controls and wheel brake equipment for airplanes. By 1979, Parker Hannifin employed 20,000 people in 100 plants, selling 90,000 items for machinery, airplanes, cars and construction equipment to 60,000 customers.<ref name="Salpukas"/> The company made some of the equipment inside the mechanical shark in the 1975 movie Jaws.<ref name="Alexander"/>

In 1982, Paul G. Schloemer replaced Patrick Parker as the company's president (although Patrick Parker remained chairman and CEO).<ref name="Sloane"/> That same year, the firm entered the Mexican market. By 2008, Parker Hannifin Mexico would come to operate 11 plants in the country, seven of which made parts exclusively for the U.S. market. In 1988, the company reached $2 billion in sales.<ref name="Krupa"/>

The firm opened its first retail "ParkerStore" in Cleveland in 1993. Within 10 years, the network of stores expanded to 200 locations in the U.S. and more than 400 worldwide. ParkerStores offer a variety of Parker products, including hydraulics, automation, and hose and fitting components, at locations close to industrial product buyers.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead link</ref> Parker Hannifin systems helped control the massive replica of the Titanic in the 1997 film of the same name.<ref name="Vault"/> In 1997, the firm moved its headquarters from Cleveland to a new building in Mayfield Heights, a suburb of Cleveland.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1999, the company's sales reached approximately $5 billion.<ref name="Davis">Template:Cite news</ref>

2000s–present

Parker Hannifin acquired Commercial Intertech Corporation, a maker of hydraulic systems, in 2000.Commercial Intertech had previously acquired Oildyne Inc., a well known hydraulic manufacturer. Parker has an Oildyne division today.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> With a cost of $366 million, this was at the time Parker Hannifin's biggest acquisition.<ref name="Davis"/>

In 2001, CEO Don Washkewicz introduced lean startup methods to company operations and has said that over the decade this reduced the time to obtain price quotes by 60% and cut product development lead times by 25%.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2002 the company appointed Craig Maxwell as head of engineering; Maxwell brought a focus on innovation as well as rigor; he argued for and was given a $20M annual budget to fund blue sky inventions made by engineers and has given engineers time to pursue them; at the same time his team developed software that allows tracking each of the company's 1700 ongoing R&D projects graded by risk and potential reward, and closely managing their progress. In 2011 he hired Ryan Farris out of Vanderbilt University and licensed patents covering a powered exoskeleton that Farris had worked on at Vanderbilt. In 2015 the company opened an internal business incubator that Maxwell had proposed when he was first hired.<ref name="Alexander"/>

The company won $2 billion in contracts to build fuel and hydraulic systems for Airbus A350 airliners in 2008<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Two years later, its products were used in repairing the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.<ref name="Zerega"/>

Thomas Williams took over the CEO role from Washkewicz in 2015.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2016, the company completed its largest acquisition to date, buying Clarcor, a filtration systems manufacturer, for $4.3 billion.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2019, Parker bought Lord Corporation for $3.7 billion and Kent, WA based Exotic Metals Forming Company for $1.7 billion.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In August 2021, the company agreed to buy British aerospace and defense company Meggitt for £6.3 billion.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In July 2022, after making commitments to the UK government including increasing research and development spending in Britain, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy approved the takeover without being referred for a full Competition and Markets Authority investigation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The acquisition completed in September 2022.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In May 2022, it was announced Parker Hannifin has sold its aircraft wheel and brake division to the Bloomfield-headquartered aerospace company, Kaman Corporation for US$440 million.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In November 2025, Parker Hannifin announced a deal to buy Filtration Group—a privately held filtration-technologies manufacturer—for $9.25 billion. The deal is expected to create on of the largest industrial filtration businesses in the world.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Aerospace

Parker Hannifin's aerospace group designs and manufactures aerospace hydraulic equipment, flight controls, fuel system components, high-temperature bleed air valves, and other components.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Headquartered in Irvine, California,<ref name="LAT">Template:Cite news</ref> Parker Aerospace operates facilities around the world.<ref name="NDN">Template:Cite news</ref> The company has had contracts to contribute parts and maintenance for machinery produced by Airbus,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Rolls-Royce, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China as well as other manufacturers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1993, the Federal Aviation Administration contracted Parker Aerospace to develop a new monitoring device, the Multi-Sensor Enroute Flight Inspection System, for flight inspection aircraft.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Notable acquisitions by the division include the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Abex/NWL division of Pneumo Abex in 1996,<ref name="LAT"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Naples, Florida-based Shaw Aero Devices, in 2007.<ref name="NDN"/> In 2012, the company partnered with General Electric to form a 50–50 joint venture, Advanced Atomization Technologies, for producing fuel nozzles for commercial aircraft engines.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Boeing 737 accidents and incidents

Template:Main In 1995, it was discovered that failures in a servo unit supplied by Parker Hannifin to Boeing for use in their 737 aircraft may have contributed to several accidents and incidents, including the crashes of United Airlines Flight 585 and USAir Flight 427.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2004, a Los Angeles jury ordered Parker Hannifin to pay US$43 million to the plaintiff families of the 1997 SilkAir Flight 185 crash in Indonesia. Parker Hannifin subsequently appealed the verdict, which resulted in an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed amount. The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) could not determine the cause of the crash due to the near total lack of physical evidence because of the complete destruction;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), however disagreed, and concluded that the crash was caused, possibly intentionally, by the pilot.<ref>Template:Cite video</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The FAA ordered an upgrade of all Boeing 737 rudder control systems by November 12, 2002. The firm argued that the components they supplied were not at fault, citing that the product has one of the safest records in its class, but the FAA directive went through regardless.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2016, former NTSB investigator John Cox stated that time has proven the NTSB correct in its findings that the valve was faulty, because no additional rudder-reversal incidents have occurred since Boeing's redesign.<ref name="Why Planes Crash">Template:Cite episode</ref>

F-35 fueldraulic line failure

On January 18, 2013, the F-35B variant of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II was grounded after the failure of a fueldraulic line in the aircraft's propulsion system that controls the exhaust vectoring system. This followed an incident two days earlier on January 16, in which the propulsion system experienced a fueldraulic failure prior to a conventional takeoff.<ref>F-35B grounded after fueldraulic line failure – Flightglobal.com, January 18, 2013.</ref> The failure was found to be a manufacturing defect by Parker Hannifin's Stratoflex division.<ref>"Engineers discover culprit behind F-35B fueldraulic line failure."</ref><ref>"Stratoflex – Parker."</ref>

External links

• Template:Official website