Gould Electronics Inc. was a manufacturer of

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

and batteries that branched into other fields before being partially absorbed in 1988 by Nippon Mining (now JX Holdings) and closed by them in 2014. The company had it's origins in several battery manufacturers who were consolidated in the period under the ownership of the National Battery Co.

History

Gould had its origin in a number of companies, including both the Gould Storage Battery Corporation (founded 1899) and the National Lead Battery Company (founded 1920 in

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (often abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, ...

). Gould Storage Battery had been founded by Charles A. Gould and was a 100% owned subsidary of his Gould Coupler Company based in Depew, New York. During the

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

the company along with

Exide Exide was originally a brand name for batteries produced by The Electric Storage Battery Company and later became Exide Holdings, Inc. doing business as Exide Technologies, an American lead–acid battery, lead-acid batteries manufacturing com ...

had manufactured batteries for US Navy submarines. During the 1920's they would pivot into producing batteries for the automotive industry. In 1928 the National Lead Battery company reincorporated in Delaware as the National Battery Co. and two years later bought the Gould Storage Battery Company for $225,000. In 1947 National Battery acquired the Storage Battery Divison of

Philco Philco (an acronym for Philadelphia Battery Company) is an American electronics industry, electronics manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia. Philco was a pioneer in battery, radio, and television production. In 1961, the company was purchase ...

and merged it into its Gould Storage Battery subsidiary. In 1950 the company renamed itself as Gould-National Batteries, Inc. In 1969 Gould-National merged with Clevite, this resulted in the renaming of the company to Gould Inc. and the entering into the

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...

industry. Gould Inc. would move its headquarters from St. Paul's to Rolling Meadows, Illinois after the merger. Having acquired Systems Engineering Laboratories Gould became involved in the Superminicomputer computer business. From 1977 to the mid-1980s the company owned the Modicon brand of

programmable logic controller A programmable logic controller (PLC) or programmable controller is an industrial computer that has been ruggedized and adapted for the control of manufacturing processes, such as assembly lines, machines, robotic devices, or any activity that ...

, today owned by Schneider Electric. This was in a phase where the company became a mini- conglomerate, with a diverse portfolio of industrial interests. In 1983 the original Battery business which had made up nearly the entirety of the business before diversification in the late 1960's was sold to a group of investors. This would become GNB Batteries Inc. (the initials based off original Gould-National Batteries name) and would be acquired by Pacific Dunlop in 1987 before finally becoming part of Exide in 2000. In 1985, Gould, Inc. employed 21,000 worldwide and had sales of 1.4 billion, most of which came from its electrical and electronics products and components, and its defense systems. Gould's non-defense businesses were acquired in 1988 by Nippon Mining (now JX Holdings). As part of the U.S. government approval of the 1988 deal, Nippon Mining was required to divest the Gould divisions then doing work for the Department of Defense, including the Computer Systems Division. Later, in 1989, Encore Computer Corporation (about 250 employees) bought the computer division (about 2500 employees) from Nippon Mining. Gould would report losses over the next couple of years and in 1993 Nippon Mining decided to liquidate Gould Inc. and to divide the assets between two new companies, namely Gould Electronics Inc. (Copper Foil manufacture for Electronics industry) and Gould Instrument Systems Inc. (test and measurement equipment). GIS Inc. was subsequently purchased by ThermoSpectra for $25.6 million in May 1995. At some point it became headquartered in Eichstetten,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Sports sponsorship

During the late 1970s, Gould served as a sponsor for Penske Racing in American open wheel racing. This included being the primary sponsor of the winning car of the 1979 Indianapolis 500.

Closure

In July 2014, Gould's then current corporate parent, JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corporation (a part of JX Holdings), announced that it would be closing down the company as a part of JX Nippon Metals & Mining's restructuring, involving closing down several facilities in Japan, the Philippines, and in Germany, where Gould was headquartered. The restructuring was in response to, according to their press release about Gould's closure, "a shrinking market in Europe, high overcapacity and an ongoing erosion of prices, partly triggered by subsidized manufacturers from China and other Asian countries."Gould Electronics' website (captured on 2/19/2015 by the Wayback Machine)

''Gould Electronics announces plant closure by the end of 2014, followed by liquidation of the company'' Gould is the current owner of a

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

-contaminated parcel of land in Throop, Pennsylvania, which it bought in the early 1980s from the former Marjol Battery and Equipment Company. The CGI title credits of the 1980s television show ''

Amazing Stories ''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearance ...

'' was created using a Gould Powernode 9080 computer.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Company website (archived from the Wayback Machine)

1928 establishments in Minnesota 2014 disestablishments in Arizona American companies established in 1928 American companies disestablished in 2014 Companies based in Chandler, Arizona Computer companies established in 1981 Computer companies disestablished in 2014 Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer systems companies Electronics companies established in 1928 Electronics companies disestablished in 2014