PULLMANYou might call it a prolonged power surge.


Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Inc. (SEL), the Pullman-based maker of electrical-system protection equipment, says it expects to finish this year with close to 20 percent growth in revenues and anticipates a double-digit gain again in 2007. Furthermore, it says it doesnt foresee any market conditions that might trip a circuit breaker in its bullish long-term outlook.


Theres a tremendous amount of work to be done, says Ed Schweitzer, the companys founder and president.


SEL doesnt disclose revenue numbers, but it clearly now ranks among the Inland Northwests largestand healthiestprivately owned manufacturing concerns. It employs more than 1,300 people in more than 50 locations around the world, sells products in 110 countries, and has construction projects worth more than $20 million under way on its bustling, hillside campus just north of the Washington State University campus here.


Its flight department alone, consisting of three Cessna Citation jets, seven full-time pilots, a full-time mechanic, a dispatcher, and two hangars that it owns at the Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport, is bigger than many Spokane-area businesses, and those seven- and eight-passenger aircraft are in use constantly.


While some businesses are bracing for an economic slowdown, SEL expects to enlarge its work force by at least 10 percent next year as it further broadens its geographical reach, expands its customer base into more industries, and introduces new products.


It recently opened an office in India, and Schweitzer says, We expect that to be quite successful.


SELs roots are in the electric utility industry, and its growth prospects in that sector are still very good, he says, due partly to general population growth and the relatively conservative rate at which utilities adopt new digital technologies, which are at the heart of its most successful products.


He says, though, that the company also has a fast-growing industrial base that encompasses sectors such as pharmaceuticals, cement, metals and mining, pulp and paper, and waste water and is doing some government work as well, such as for the U.S. Navy.


SEL sells a broad array of products not just for protecting electrical systems, but also for monitoring, controlling, and automating them. Its 2006 product catalog is 346 pages thick and includes everything from gum pack-sized fiber-optic transceivers and stereo component-sized digital controllers and protective relays to double-closet-sized integrated substation systems and, larger yet, turnkey substation control houses.


The companys mainstay products continue to be those targeted at the power transmission and distribution sector of the utility industry, such as digital relays that are used at substations and fault indicators that attach to power lines and help locate failure points much more quickly than previously was possible.


Along with moving into a broader range of industry sectors, though, SEL is expanding its offerings by incorporating wireless capability into some of its current products and by delving into cyber-security, or secure communications, which Schweitzer predicts is going to be a huge area for the company.


Construction galore


At its campus in Pullman just off of Terre View Drive, the company is on a building spree. Its wrapping up construction of a new 90,000-square-foot, five-story corporate headquarters and a 17,000-square-foot events center, and is just beginning work on a separate project to double its manufacturing space there to more than 200,000 square feet.


ALSC Architects PS and Lydig Construction Inc., both of Spokane, are the architect and general contractor on those projects.


SEL expects to move into the new five-story building next month, and the added manufacturing space is to be completed next summer, Schweitzer says. The latter expansion is taking place at the southeast corner of the companys 103,000-square-foot manufacturing building at 2440 NE Hopkins Court. The original manufacturing building there had 65,000 square feet of floor space and was constructed in 1999 and 2000, and 38,000 square feet of space was added in 2002.


The new headquarters building and the events center, which SEL plans to make available for community use, are the 10th and 11th structures the company has built or bought in that hillside area. Also, theyre the first buildings to be developed on 92 acres of land the company acquired five years ago to accommodate future expansion. SEL envisions lodging, retail, and other commercial facilities being developed on adjacent land.


Another recent project involved the renovation of a building in Lake Zurich, Ill., to house E.O. Schweitzer Manufacturing Co. (EOS), formerly of Mundelein, Ill. SEL acquired that company two years ago. The move to the new building allowed EOS, which Schweitzers father had started in 1949 and now operates as a division of SEL, to nearly quadruple its space. SEL also has a manufacturing operation in Monterrey, Mexico.


As it has expanded locally, SEL has endured some growing pains, such as an inability to fill job vacancies as quickly as it would like, despite its proximity to WSU and the University of Idaho. Nationally, engineers are in short supply, but Schweitzer says, For some reason, its gotten a little easier for us (to hire needed engineers) in the last year or so. One reason for that, he suggests, is that the company has developed a reputation as a really great place to work.


Schweitzer says SELs revenue and employment percentage growth might be somewhat slower next year than this year, but that would be due to functions of scale and strategy rather than to any business slowdown.


Were mission-driven, rather than being guided by specific growth-rate goals, he says. Weve enjoyed continuous steady growth. Were pretty steady and predictable. Its not a boom-and-bust business.


A third-generation inventor and entrepreneur, Schweitzer developed a digital relay as a doctorate project at WSU and that project led to the manufacturing of what SEL claims was the worlds first all-digital protective relay, which it says has revolutionized the power-protection industry.


Schweitzer started SEL in the basement of his Pullman home with $2,000 in 1982, spurred by what he says was a desire to make the transmission of electrical power safer, more reliable, and more economical. The company shipped its first products, to Otter Tail Power Co., in Fergus Falls, Minn., two years later. SEL constructed its first building in 1985, when it employed 11 people and had sales of just $500,000.


In the beginning, I had to do everything. I still remember when we hired our first human-resource person, Schweitzer says. Now, he says, We have a great executive team, good depth.


He served for a time on the electrical engineering faculties at WSU and Ohio University, andamid his myriad executive responsibilitiesretains a strong interest in education.


I like to say that selling is teaching, he says.


SEL offers technical education to its customers, provided both in the classroomincluding at their locations around the worldand electronically, through a unit it calls SEL University, and has donated equipment to a large number of schools. WSU announced a few months ago, for example, that it was upgrading its electrical-distribution system with $178,000 worth of equipment donated by SEL, and the company says it has helped equip electrical-engineering teaching labs at universities from Puerto Rico to Canada.


Looking back, Schweitzer says he never expected when he started the company that it would grow to its current size.


I had this internal motivation to invent things and see people use them and benefit from them, he says, adding that still today, Thats what drives me.


Contact Kim Crompton at (509) 344-1263 or via e-mail at kimc@spokanejournal.com.