Gould Electronics Inc. was a manufacturer of

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

and batteries that branched into other fields before being partially absorbed in 1988 by Nippon Mining (now

JX Holdings is a Japanese petroleum and metals conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. In 2012 the multinational corporation consisted of 24,691 employees worldwide and, as of March 2013, JX Holdings was the forty-third largest company in the world by ...

) and closed by them in 2014.

History

Gould was founded in 1928 and at some point was based in

Chandler, Arizona Chandler is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and a suburb in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). It is bordered to the north and west by Tempe, to the north by Mesa, to the west by Phoenix, to the ...

. Some time in the 1950s or beyond it became involved in the

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

industry, making

printed circuit A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich struc ...

materials for use by

manufacturers. Having acquired Systems Engineering Laboratories Gould became involved in the

Superminicomputer A superminicomputer, colloquially supermini, is a high-end minicomputer. The term is used to distinguish the emerging 32-bit architecture midrange computers introduced in the mid to late 1970s from the classical 16-bit systems that preceded the ...

computer business. From 1977 to the mid-1980s the company owned the Modicon brand of

programmable logic controller A programmable logic controller (PLC) or programmable controller is an industrial computer that has been ruggedized and adapted for the control of manufacturing processes, such as assembly lines, machines, robotic devices, or any activity tha ...

, today owned by

Schneider Electric Schneider Electric SE is a French multinational company that specializes in digital automation and energy management. It addresses homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries, by combining energy technologies, real-time automation ...

. This was in a phase where the company became a mini- conglomerate, with a diverse portfolio of industrial interests. In 1985, Gould, Inc. employed 21,000 worldwide and had sales of 1.4 billion, most of which came from its electrical and electronics products and components, and its defense systems. Gould's non-defense businesses were acquired in 1988 by Nippon Mining (now

). As part of the U.S. government approval of the 1988 deal, Nippon Mining was required to divest the Gould divisions then doing work for the

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

, including the Computer Systems Division. Later, in 1989,

Encore Computer Encore Computer was an early pioneer in the parallel computing market, based in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Although offering several system designs beginning in 1985, they were never as well known as other companies in this field such as Pyramid ...

Corporation (about 250 employees) bought the computer division (about 2500 employees) from Nippon Mining. At some point it became headquartered in

Eichstetten Eichstetten am Kaiserstuhl is a municipality in the southwest of Baden-Württemberg in Germany near Freiburg im Breisgau. Geography Eichstetten is a village in South Baden that produces wine. It is located in the Upper Rhine Plain on the eastern ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Closure

In July 2014, Gould's then current corporate parent, JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corporation (a part of

), announced that it would be closing down the company as a part of JX Nippon Metals & Mining's restructuring, involving closing down several facilities in Japan, the Philippines, and in Germany, where Gould was headquartered. The restructuring was in response to, according to their press release about Gould's closure, "a shrinking market in Europe, high overcapacity and an ongoing erosion of prices, partly triggered by subsidized manufacturers from China and other Asian countries."Gould Electronics' website (captured on 2/19/2015 by the Wayback Machine)

''Gould Electronics announces plant closure by the end of 2014, followed by liquidation of the company'' Gould is the current owner of a

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

-contaminated parcel of land in

Throop, Pennsylvania Throop is a borough in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States, adjoining Scranton. Formerly, coal mining and silk manufacturing provided employment for the people of Throop, who numbered 2,204 in 1900 and 5,133 in 1910. In 1940, 7,382 peo ...

, which it bought in the early 1980s from the former Marjol Battery and Equipment Company. The CGI title credits of the 1980s television show ''

Amazing Stories ''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearances i ...

'' was created using a Gould

Powernode 9080 {{unreferenced, date=June 2013 The PowerNode 9080 was a dual processor 32-bit Superminicomputer produced by Fort Lauderdale, Florida based electronics company Gould Electronics in the 1980s. Its UTX/32 4.3BSD Berkeley Unix-based operating system ...

computer.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Company website (archived from the Wayback Machine)

Companies based in Chandler, Arizona Electronics companies established in 1928 Superfund sites in Oregon Defunct computer hardware companies Electronics companies disestablished in 2014 1928 establishments in Arizona 2014 disestablishments in Arizona