Private/employee-owned | |
Industry | Electrical equipment |
Founded | 1982 |
Founder | Edmund O. Schweitzer III |
Headquarters | Pullman, Washington |
Products | Power system protection & control, Automation, Power meter, Telecommunication , Fault indicator, Rugged computer, Panels and Enclosures |
Services | Power management Protection and automation services Cybersecurity analysis |
Number of employees
|
5,000+ |
Website | http://www.selinc.com/ |
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc. (SEL) designs, manufactures, and supports products and services ranging from generator and transmission protection to distribution automation and control systems. Founded in 1982 by Edmund O. Schweitzer III, SEL shipped the world's first digital protective relay. Presently, the company designs and manufactures embedded system products for protecting, monitoring, control, and metering of electric power systems.
The company serves a variety of industries, including utilities, pulp and paper, transportation, water and wastewater, education, healthcare, government, mission-critical facilities, and oil, gas, and petrochemical operations.
SEL is 100 percent employee owned, headquartered in Pullman, Washington, with about 2,300 based in there in addition to 2,700 employees in field offices and other manufacturing facilities in about 15 national locations, in addition to another 45 international.
SEL was founded in Pullman, Washington in 1982 when Dr. Edmund O. Schweitzer III invented and marketed the first all-digital protective relay. Schweitzer’s invention revolutionized the industry by reducing the size, cost, and complexity of protective relays while adding communications and reporting capabilities.
Schweitzer created the relay as a Ph.D. project while at Washington State University. He sold his first product, the SEL-21, to Otter Tail Power Company in Fergus Falls, Minnesota in 1984. Otter Tail initially used the SEL-21 for its fault location and event recording functions.
In 1985, SEL built its first building and employed eleven people. In 2009, SEL became 100% employee-owned under an (ESOP).
SEL has four manufacturing facilities in the U.S. located in Pullman, Washington; Lewiston, Idaho; and Lake Zurich, Illinois. In 2003, the company opened its first Regional Integration Center in San Luis Potosi, followed by May 2017 opening in Saudi Arabia city of Dammam with a peak manufacturing ablitiy for 1,200 control panels. With Mexico to build complete panels and PowerMAX for all of North America. The components for the panels are made in Pullman and shipped to Mexico where they are integrated into panels.