Hitran

Hitran

The HITRAN Corporation roots go back to 1924 when John C. Hindle Sr. and Ambie Hardwick founded Hardwick-Hindle Company. Hardwick-Hindle had various lines of products including power resistors, switches and rectifiers. Unfortunately the company barely made it through the Great Depression and was eventually sold. One part became National Lockwasher and the other became Ohmite.
Throughout the 30's John Hindle Sr. worked in advertising and sales for various companies whose products included chicken raising equipment and photographic supplies. He did not get back into the transformer business until 1939 when he formed a partnership with an engineer from the Sperry Corporation and started the New York Transformer Company. New York Transformer served the war effort and the elevator and machine tool industries. It was eventually moved to Alpha, New Jersey in 1945. John Hindle Sr. left New York Transformer in 1946 and formed his own new company, Eastern Transformer Company.
Looking to get into the manufacturing business after WW2, John Sr's son John Jr. started ETRACO Manufacturing in 1948. ETRACO focused on building TV Antennas, towers and rotators. John Sr's interest was in Sales and John Jr's was in Manufacturing so in 1949 John Sr. closed Eastern Transformer to join forces with his son. In 1950 ETRACO was renamed Hindle Transformer Company. At that time the company focused on small custom designed transformers. The elevator industry provided a large amount of early business for the company.
Hindle Transformer became well known in the industry as a source for engineered solutions coupled with very reliable product quality and delivery. At one time Hindle products were favored in several key military applications.
The business gradually grew to the point where it occupied almost all of the buildings on the Hindle farm in Flemington, NJ. In 1961, the company was merged with Connecticut based York Research and moved to a newly built facility in Putnam, Connecticut.
This merger, however, was not successful and in 1963, The Hindle family moved back to Flemington, New Jersey to restart the business. A new name was required since Hindle Transformer was still in use by York Research. The new name, HITRAN, borrowed from the old. HITRAN = (HIndle TRANsformer).
HITRAN grew rapidly due in large part to the loyalty Hindle Transformer customers had to John Hindle Jr. Once again (as was the case with Hindle Transformer) HITRAN quickly became a leader in the small to medium sized custom magnetics markets. Engineered solutions were a key to the success of the company and remains a primary business focus of the company today. In 1972, the company moved to its present location on Rt. 31 in Flemington. In 1982, the building expanded to its present size of 50, 000 square feet.
In 1975 HITRAN started to design and manufacture custom power supplies that combined integrated electronics with HITRAN's knowledge of magnetics. Key products for the new "Power Systems" division were power supplies for the electronic plating industry and for cathodic protection of ships and pipelines. In 1980 HITRAN acquired the rights to market and build small battery chargers. That product was a natural fit for HITRAN, since it allowed the application of engineering and manufacturing skills that already existed.
As of January 2002, HITRAN has reorganized and spun-off the Power Systems division. The new company, HindlePower, Inc. is located in Easton, PA. This reorganization will allow each company to pursue their own strategic goals and provide for better succession planning since the third generation of Hindles are now in the business.
In 2008 Hitran started the next chapter in its success story, opening a brand new manufacturing facility in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. This additional location, featuring 35, 000 square feet of production space will enable Hitran to expand even further in the global market.
HITRAN Corporation (Flemington, NJ) markets an extensive line of custom and standard products that serve the following industries/applications (partial list):