Black & Decker

Black & Decker Corporation
Subsidiary
Traded as BDK
Industry Power tools, home improvement products, hardware, fastening technology
Founded September 1910 (1910-09) (as The Black & Decker Manufacturing Company)
Founder S. Duncan Black
Alonzo G. Decker
Headquarters Towson, Maryland, U.S.
Key people
Nolan D. Archibald ceo
Products Power tools
Revenue $6.09 billion (FY2008)[1]
$293.6 million (FY2008)[1]
Number of employees
27,000
Parent Stanley Black & Decker
Website Consumer Website
A Black and Decker cordless drill

Black & Decker Corporation is an American manufacturer of power tools, accessories, hardware, home improvement products and technology based fastening systems headquartered in Towson, Maryland. On March 12, 2010, Black & Decker merged with Stanley Works to become Stanley Black & Decker.[2] It remains as a wholly owned subsidiary of that company.

History

Black & Decker Corporation was founded in 1910 by S. Duncan Black and Alonzo G. Decker as a small machine shop in Baltimore. Decker, who had a seventh grade education, had met Black in 1906, when they were both 23-year-old workers at Rowland Telegraph Co.[3]

In 1917, Black & Decker invented the familiar portable electric drill, obtaining a patent for a hand-held drill combining a pistol grip and trigger switch.[4] Its logo, a hexagon, was used in one form or another from 1912 to 2014; it represents a hexagonal nut, a universal fastener.[5]

For many decades, the director of design was Glenn Calvin Wilhide, a friend of Walter Gropius and other leading industrial designers of the day. Wilhide filed many US patents for Black & Decker, including, granted in August 1941, the patent for a portable power driven tool unit USD129046 S which is the famous drill known today.

Brands

Black & Decker (the corporation) is distinct from the "Black & Decker" brand; more than one corporation uses the brand. In particular, "Black & Decker" branded household products in the Americas (but outside of Brazil) are marketed by a division of Spectrum Brands, a consumer products corporation based in Madison, Wisconsin. In December 2012, Spectrum Brands also purchased Black & Decker's hardware and home improvement division.[8]

References

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Black & Decker.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/10/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.