Rochester manufacturer Emcor is growing under its new owner

Rochester Post-Bulletin | By Jeff Kiger

ROCHESTER — Changing owners 18 months ago didn’t box in Med City manufacturer Emcor Enclosures, which is on track to grow to 100 employees by the start of 2024.

Emcor General Manager Steve Dick and Chief Operations Officer Fred Taylor recently led U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad, who represents Minnesota 1st Congressional District, through their busy facility on the Rochester Technology Campus, formerly known as the IBM campus.

Running two production shifts, Emcor Enclosures makes and sells a catalog of 8,000 types of metal cabinets and boxes as well as custom-made products for its clients.

Raw steel from nearby McNeilus Steel in Dodge Center comes in the front door and powder-coated metal cabinets or enclosures go out the same door to be shipped to clients.

Emcor, a name which originally stood for Elgin Metal Formers Corp., was previously under the umbrella of Rochester’s long-time heavy machinery cab manufacturer Crenlo. Crenlo acquired Emcor in 1975.

In 2021, Crenlo sold Emcor to Irvine, California.-based Jonathan Engineered Solutions. Jonathan, which has a long history of making precision ball-bearing slides, brackets, trays, and sheet metal assemblies for clients like the U.S. military, is owned by New York City-based private equity firm JLL Partners.

In the months since the transition, Emcor has grown from employing 50 workers to 75, and Taylor expects that number to grow to 100 employees by the start of 2024. The company is currently looking for more welders to work on its second shift.

“We have highly skilled workers, many who have been with us a long time. … Things are going really well. We're growing. We’re pushing 40% growth this year,” he told Finstad.

Emcor’s production floor occupies about 78,000 square feet of space with offices adding another 5,000-square-foot chunk. Dick and Taylor say the company is adding more space this summer and will go into the fall with an almost 100,000-square-foot facility.

Emcor’s customers for its metal enclosures and cabinets are either connected to the military defense industry or to technology firms, like data centers.

“About 70% of our business is with defense contractors or companies related to defense. The rest are in technology,” said Dick.

Finstad, who serves on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, said he spotted Emcor cabinets housing computer equipment while at a training simulator for Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet.

What is driving the growth at Emcor?

“We're growing strongly in our traditional defense side and we've made some good progress in our data center side. Both are growing really, really strongly,” said Dick.

How are things different at Emcor under the ownership of Jonathan Engineered Solutions compared to Crenlo?

“Crenlo was historically a good owner. Emcor was a leverage play for them. … Jonathan is also like that, but there's more than that. They're in the same industry, so that we are able to leverage our contacts. Their other products are synergistic with ours,” explained Dick. “They are all the things that you would want in an owner. Besides just the operational synergy, we've got customer synergy with our new owner, and it makes a big difference. And they've been very willing to invest in growth.”