Pelco Incorporated is an American security and surveillance technologies company. Founded in 1957 and headquartered in

Fresno, California Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

, Pelco is a wholly owned subsidiary of

Motorola Solutions Motorola Solutions, Inc. is an American technology, communications, and security company, headquartered in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. It is the legal successor of Motorola, Inc., following the spinoff of the mobile phone division into Motorola ...

. The company's products include security cameras, recording and management systems, and video analytics software.

History

Pelco Sales was founded in 1957 in

Hawthorne, California Hawthorne is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California. It is part of a seventeen-city subregion of the Los Angeles metropolitan area commonly known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay. As of the 2020 United States cens ...

by E.L. Heinrich. Heinrich created Pelco Sales as a side project to his already successful mechanical aviation business. Pelco Sales' first product line consisted of pan-tilt devices and joysticks designed to remotely control the position of television cameras. The demand for Pelco Sales' products grew rapidly, resulting in Heinrich's decision to abandon aviation and focus on camera technologies. The company was moved to

Gardena, California Gardena is a city located in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 61,027 at the 2020 census, up from 58,829 at the 2010 census. Until 2014, the U.S. census cited the City of Gardena as the ...

, and later to Fresno, California, to provide adequate workspace for product production. In June 1987, Rod Heinrich sold Pelco Sales to local investor David McDonald shortly after approving plans for an 80,000 square foot facility in

Clovis, California Clovis is a city in Fresno County, California, United States. It was established in 1890 as a freight stop for the San Joaquin Valley Railroad by a group of Fresno businessmen and Michigan railroad speculator Marcus Pollasky. The railroad bou ...

. McDonald truncated the name to Pelco, in an event commonly referred to as the beginning of the "new" Pelco. The company continued to expand, reaching distribution in more than 130 countries. In 2000 the

Small Business Administration The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) is an independent agency of the United States government that provides support to entrepreneurs and small businesses. The mission of the Small Business Administration is "to maintain and str ...

awarded the company its Small Business of the Year award. After the events of

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, the company financed the construction of the California 9/11 Memorial at their corporate headquarters. The memorial opened on December 8, 2001 less than three months after the attacks and includes objects recovered from

ground zero A hypocenter or hypocentre (), also called ground zero or surface zero, is the point on the Earth's surface directly below a nuclear explosion, meteor air burst, or other mid-air explosion. In seismology, the hypocenter of an earthquake is its p ...

, educational exhibits, and memorials with the names of the victims. In 2019 the memorial expanded with replicas of the

pentagon In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...

and

world trade centers World Trade Centers are the hundreds of sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may also refer to: Buildings * World Trade Center (1973–2001), a building complex that was destroyed during the September 11 at ...

. In 2007, French electrical equipment manufacturer

Schneider Electric Schneider Electric SE is a French multinational corporation that specializes in digital automation and energy management. Registered as a Societas Europaea, Schneider Electric is a ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, publicly traded on the Euronex ...

purchased Pelco for US$1.22 billion in an effort to enhance their building automation business. Schneider Electric's ownership of Pelco came to an end when Pelco was acquired by Transom Capital Group, a private equity firm based in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, in 2019. In August 2020,

announced that they had acquired Pelco for US$110 million in cash. Pelco's security and surveillance systems most notably protect

Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a royal official residence, residence in London, and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and r ...

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue Performing arts center, performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive b ...

and The Statue of Liberty. Pelco claims more than 1 million installations worldwide.

Technologies

Pelco produces security and surveillance products and is known for its pan tilt zoom (PTZ) technologies, multiple camera tracking of moving objects, and tracking of security breaches. Additionally the company has over 250 patents assigned to the company.

References

{{Motorola, state=expanded Companies based in Fresno County, California Electronics companies established in 1957 Clovis, California Manufacturing companies based in California Video surveillance companies 1957 establishments in California