| Founded | 1883 |
|---|---|
| Founder(s) | John Bean |
| Headquarters | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Key people | Pierre Brondeau (president and CEO) |
| Revenue | US$3.115 billion (2008) |
| Employees | over 5,000 people |
| Website | http://www.fmc.com/ |
FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC) is a chemical manufacturing company headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. FMC employs over 4,800 people world wide, and had gross revenues of US$3.115 billion in 2008.
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Founded in 1883 as the Bean Spray Pump Company in Los Gatos, California[1] by John Bean. The company's first product was a piston pump. Bean invented the pump to spray insecticide on the many fruit orchards in the area. A Bean sprayer is on display at the Forbes Mill museum there.[2] Bean Avenue in downtown Los Gatos is named after John Bean.
In 1928, Bean Spray Pump purchased Anderson-Barngrover Co. and Sprague-Sells, and changed its name to Food Machinery Corporation, and began using the initials FMC. FMC received a contract to design and build landing vehicles tracked for the United States War Department in 1941. FMC also built the M113 (APC) Armored Personnel Carrier and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle as well as the XR311 at its former facility in Santa Clara, California. The troubled development of the Bradley was satirized in the 1998 HBO movie The Pentagon Wars. In the movie FMC was fictionalized as A.O.C corporation. Bean also manufactured fire fighting equipment in the 1960s through the 1980s under the FMC and the Bean names.
FMC also produced fire truck fire pumps and pumper bodies, and had an OEM arrangement with LTI (Ladder Towers Inc.) to market aerial ladders. In the early 1980s the Fire apparatus division of FMC tried to expand its role in aerial ladders on fire trucks, leveraging the Link-Belt crane division. FMC was ultimately unsuccessful in its expansion into production of aerial ladders. The FMC Fire Apparatus division was also ultimately shut down in 1990.[3]
FMC sells chemical products used by beef and poultry processors to reduce pathogens, such a E. coli and salmonella, on uncooked beef and poultry.[4] FMC obtained a patent on a method for sanitizing fowl that have been killed, plucked and eviscerated by contacting the fowl with an aqueous acid solution and maintaining that contact for a time sufficient to sanitize the fowl.[5]
In 1946, FMC bought out Bolens Lawn And Garden Equipment. FMC changed names again in 1948, becoming Food Machinery and Chemical Corporation. In 1961 the name was changed to FMC Corporation.
In 1967, the FMC Corporation merged with the Link-Belt Company. The company produced FMC Link-Belt branded cranes and excavators. In 1986, the Link-Belt Construction Equipment Company was formed as a joint venture between FMC Corporation and Sumitomo Heavy Industries.
Between 1965 and 1985 FMC was the owner of the Gunderson metal works in Oregon USA, during that period it was known as the 'Marine and Rail Equipment Division of FMC' (MRED), it was sold in 1985 to The Greenbrier Companies.[6]
In the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, FMC Corporation began spinning several of its divisions into separate companies, including United Defense and FMC Technologies, and selling its divisions, including the John Bean Company, now a subsidiary of Snap-on Equipment, a division of Snap-on. Bolens was sold to Troy Built in 1991.
During the 1980s, FMC was involved in the insider trading scandals hitting Wall Street when Ivan Boesky used illegally gained information regarding a restructuring plan to turn a $975,000 profit.[7]
In 2009, CBS television news magazine 60 Minutes ran an expose discussing the use of an FMC Corporation produced chemical, Furadan, as a poison used by Kenyan farmers to kill African lions. The piece suggested that the Furadan was a serious threat to the future of the lion population in Africa. FMC Corporation refused to comment for the piece.[8][9]
In 2001, FMC spun off its energy, airport, and food equipment businesses into a separate company named FMC Technologies, Inc.
In 2006 FMC Corporation celebrated 75 years being listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Pierre Brondeau has been named President and Chief Executive Officer succeeding William G. Walter, effective January 1, 2010. Mr. Brondeau was formerly with Dow Chemical and prior to that Rohm & Haas.[10]
A former FMC site in San Jose, California is the proposed location for New Earthquakes Stadium, a new soccer-specific stadium for the San Jose Earthquakes.
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