LECO Corporation, founded in 1936 by Carl Schultz and George Krasl, operates its analytical instrumentation research and development, and manufacturing from its headquarters located in

St. Joseph, Michigan St. Joseph, colloquially known as St. Joe, is a city and the county seat of Berrien County, Michigan. It was incorporated as a village in 1834 and as a city in 1891. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 7,856. It lies on the shore ...

. LECO develops and manufactures elemental measurement and molecular

Time-of-flight mass spectrometry Time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) is a method of mass spectrometry in which an ion's mass-to-charge ratio is determined by a time of flight measurement. Ions are accelerated by an electric field of known strength. This acceleration result ...

instrumentation, following

ISO 9000 The ISO 9000 family is a set of international standards for Quality (business), quality management systems. It was developed in March 1987 by International Organization for Standardization. The goal of these standards is to help organizations en ...

standards. The LECO trademark is an

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

of the original name, Laboratory Equipment Corporation. One of LECO's early products was a combustion analyzer invented by Krasl in 1957 that used crucibles invented by his employee Eugene Bennet.^, LECO carries out research in many fields of analytical chemistry including protein measurement in foods, sulfur in coal emissions, glow discharge emission in metals, multi-dimensional gas chromatograph mass spectrometry,

environmental monitoring Environmental monitoring is the processes and activities that are done to characterize and describe the state of the environment. It is used in the preparation of environmental impact assessments, and in many circumstances in which human activit ...

air quality Air pollution is the presence of substances in the Atmosphere of Earth, air that are harmful to humans, other living beings or the environment. Pollutants can be Gas, gases like Ground-level ozone, ozone or nitrogen oxides or small particles li ...

Metabolomics Metabolomics is the scientific study of chemical processes involving metabolites, the small molecule substrates, intermediates, and products of cell metabolism. Specifically, metabolomics is the "systematic study of the unique chemical fingerpri ...

, and diverse medical and pharmaceutical applications. LECO has been a manufacturer and distributor of

metallographic Metallography is the study of the physical structure and components of metals, by using microscopy. Ceramic and polymeric materials may also be prepared using metallographic techniques, hence the terms ceramography, plastography and, collecti ...

equipment since the 1970s, and makes

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

products for the

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

industry. LECO Corporation has sales subsidiaries worldwide. As of June 8, 1977, Robert J. Warren (1933-2022), husband of Elizabeth D. Schultz and son-in-law of Carl Schultz, and family have become the sole owners of the company, acquiring outstanding stocks which had become the property of the George J. Krasl Trust following George Krasl's death on August 5, 1976. Bob Warren was hired by LECO in 1968 and became its president in 1975. LECO became a worldwide supplier of instruments and metallographic equipment under Warren's management, and one of southwestern Michigan's larger employers. He was succeeded as CEO by his sons upon his retirement in 2016.Robert J. Warren Obituary
" ''The Herald-Palladium'', St. Joseph, MI, 26 Apr 2022.

References

{{Authority control Technology companies of the United States Companies based in Michigan

See also

References