Phoenix Contact plans expansion, marks operations anniversary

By Control Engineering Staff July 11, 2006

Artist’s rendering shows Phoenix Contact’s planned 45,000 sq ft distribution center. Company officials gathered for ground-breaking ceremonies and also to celebrate 25 years of U.S. operations.

Middletown, PA— Phoenix Contact marked 25 years of U.S. operations by breaking ground for a $12 million expansion project at its headquarters here. Officials from Germany and the United States gathered to celebrate the past and look to the future by performing the ceremonial “first dig” for a new 45,000 sq ft distribution center and expansion of the company’s manufacturing facility from 28,000 to 90,000 sq ft.

“It was an ambitious and visionary decision of my brother Gerd Eisert, the architect of the Phoenix Contact business activities abroad, to enter the North American continent 25 years ago,” said CEO Klaus Eisert. “He was convinced that this highly developed nation would be a future market for Phoenix Contact. At that time, we were competing with a small range of European DIN-rail terminal blocks on the one hand and PCB terminal blocks on the other hand. This turned out to be a success story.”

Phoenix Control, founded in 1923, manufactures specialized electronic components and connection systems. World headquarters are in Blomberg, Germany. U.S. operations, which began with just 5 people, now employs 415. The company plans to hire an additional 250 by 2010. The distribution center is scheduled for completion in 2007; the manufacturing expansion in 2008.

—Control Engineering Daily News Desk

Jeanine Katzel , senior editor