Industry Roundup: Acquisitions and Awards

By Consulting Specifying Engineer Staff September 28, 2006

• ANSYS, Southpointe, Pa., has been named to the software industry Sustained Success Honor Roll for the third consecutive year. Culled from a list of more than 500 public software companies, ANSYS is one of 20 that made the 2006 honor roll.

• Arthur E. Cote, executive vice president and chief engineer of the National Fire Protection Assn. was recently honored with the American Fire Sprinkler Assn.’s 2006 Henry S. Parmelee Award.

• Carrier Corporation, Farmington, Conn., a unit of United Technologies Corp., won the HVAC Comfortech Product Showcase Award for Best In Show in the heating products category. Comfortech, the National, Residential and Light Commercial HVAC Seminar Showcase, took place Sept. 13-16 in Baltimore.

• Danfoss, Baltimore, has completed its acquisition of Scroll Technologies, Arkadelphia, Ark., manufacturer of scroll compressors for HVAC/R applications, significantly expanding the Danfoss position in the commercial air-conditioning market.

• Generac Power Systems, Waukesha, Wis., after 47 years of private ownership by its founder and chairman Robert D. Kern, has signed an agreement with the investment firm of CCMP Capital, which will assume ownership. Generac’s current management team— William Treffert (CEO), Dawn Tabat (COO) and Aaron Jagdfeld (CFO)—will continue in their leadership roles.

• Louis Poulsen Lighting, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has been presented with both the “Educational/Institutional” and “Residential” team awards at the Calibre Awards ceremony this year, hosted by the International Interior Design Assn. (IIDA) and held at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, Calif.

• Schneider Electric North America, Palatine, Ill., has redesigned its website for engineering professionals— www.squared.com/design —to make it easier and faster to access the site’s resources. In other news from Schneider, the company’s Peru, Ind. manufacturing plant won the Best Plants Competition, an annual competition sponsored by IndustryWeek magazine.

• Siemens Building Technologies, Buffalo Grove, Ill., has signed an agreement to acquire VistaScape Security Systems Corp., Atlanta, as a wholly owned subsidiary. VistaScape is a developer of automated video analytic technology.