Conveyorized Final Assembly Lines at the Monroe St. plant in about 1949
Soon many orders followed and customers included Buick, Chevrolet and AC Spark Plug, in which Redmonds supplied small sub-assemblies.
By 1928, A.G. Redmond learned that there was a shortage for small motors and soon had 200 employees building them.
Factory records indicate that in 1928, 81,000 motors were produced and by 1941, 2,550,000 manufactured by 2100 employees.
Conveyorized Final Assembly Lines at the Monroe St. plant in about 1949
In 1937, Redmond's acquired the Owosso factory building which was formerly known as the Walker Candy Factory on Monroe St. This building was financed entirely without Government aid other than the $25,000 supplied by the City of Owosso to help them move to Owosso.
War contracts included a dynamotor which was associated with radios, radar, altimeters, blind landing equipment and numerous electronic devices, but as these contracts dropped off by 1945. Redmonds were looking at a favorable outlook for increasing civilian requirements for small motors. 2000 employees in the Owosso plant had maxed out the Owosso employment market and Redmonds added another plant to it's company which was located in Ithaca, MI.
By 1948, Redmonds sales offices included New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and Dayton, Ohio and nearly 3,000 employees reported for work each day.
According to Glenn Baumhardt's book, "Redmond Etc" written in 1991, A.G. Redmond brought two key people into the company in the late 30's. They were George and Stan Hoddy, both electrical engineering graduates of Ohio State University in the mid 1920's. Glenn believed that the Hoddy's thought they were promised a "share" of the Redmond Company. But this never came to be.
In about 1942, after A.G. Redmond turned down an additional government contract, George and Stan decided to start their own company and took several Redmond employees too!
More about the Hoddy Brothers and Universal Electric.
In 1957, a new plant was built on Delaney Rd. in Owosso. And by 1972, the Monroe St. plant closed and the Delaney St. plant was sold to the Redmond plant manager, John Northway.
Thanks to Randy Burns of Owosso for supplying the above information and pictures.