| | The international marketing and manufacturing firm known today as Duff-Norton was born in the mind of an enterprising Mississippi river boat captain, Josiah Barrett in 1883. He had an idea for a ratchet jack that would pull barges together to form a "tow" and he needed someone to manufacture it. That person was Samuel Duff, a proprietor of a machine shop in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now part of Pittsburgh. Together, they created the Duff Manufacturing Company, which by 1890 had developed new applications for the original "Barrett Jack" and extended the product line to seven models in varying capacities. In 1928, the company purchased the A.O. Norton Company of Boston and Quebec, becoming Duff-Norton in the process.
Today, Duff-Norton is a division of the Columbus McKinnon Corporation of Amherst, New York. The Duff-Norton Division's products consist of Mechanical Actuators, Mechanical Jacks, Rotary Unions®, and Electromechanical Actuators. In 1998, Raccords Gautier of Romney Sur Marne was acquired by Columbus McKinnon and is now known as Duff-Norton Europe. The Columbus McKinnon Corporation is a broad-line designer, manufacturer and supplier of material handling products and integrated material handling systems widely distributed to industrial end-users and consumers. Columbus McKinnon is listed on the NASDAQ under the symbol "CMCO".
Duff-Norton's markets are as varied as our products: construction, heavy and light manufacturing, process industries, utilities, aerospace, ship building, mining, petroleum, satellite and telecommunications, transportation, warehousing, agriculture, automotive, service trades and more.
Since our beginning, more than 100 years ago, Duff-Norton has earned a reputation for reliable, high quality products that meet the industrial lifting, positioning and transfer needs of our worldwide customers. Both our standard and custom designed products are subjected to the same rigorous testing throughout the design process to assure maximum performance and quality. Duff-Norton is continuously evaluating and investing in new technologies and management techniques to maximize the benefit to our customers, employees and stockholders. Setting new standards for quality and reliability in the products we deliver to our customers is a goal we reach everyday.
Every member of the Duff-Norton Team is dedicated to customer service excellence. This is evident in our ISO 9001 certification and the high level of involvement and performance of our Continuous Improvement Teams. Our heritage serves as a strong foundation for future growth and development; our dedication to customer service excellence will be our guide.
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