Steiner Electric Company

General information

The process of reinventing and transforming Steiner Electric never stops. In 1979 Steiner established its first branch in Rockford. Today there are eight locations in Illinois: Rockford, St. Charles, Gurnee, Chicago, Tinley Park, Crystal Lake, and their headquarters located in Elk Grove. In September 2008 the eight location opened in Hobart, Indiana. Most of Steiner’s growth was organic, with the exception of a few strategic acquisitions, the most significant of which took place in 1988 when Steiner acquired Otto Frankenbush Electrical Supply Company.

With the addition of Excel Electric Services Company in 1992, Steiner became recognized as a leading motor repair shop and supplier of new motors, drives, and accessories.

In 1999 Steiner acquired Powertron, a generator service company. Today Steiner Power Systems provides generator sales service and rental. 1999 was also the year, Crown Industrial Supply was acquired, a distributor for cutting tools, abrasives, chemicals, and general industrial, safety, janitorial and maintenance supplies. These two acquisitions were strategic to the business model of providing more complementary products and service for the plant floor.

Steiner internally developed a bandsaw blade welding center, a DataComm products division and the company’s GigaAge division for wireless networking and data collection products and software. The Steiner Supplier Partnership Group (SPG) implements an integrated supply program taking responsibility for tool crib management and MRO (Maintenance Repair Organization) products for an entire manufacturing facility.

It’s hard to drive around Northern Illinois during the week and not pass a Steiner blue delivery truck; they are part of the landscape. Much of what Steiner does is behind the scenes to the average person, but to the professional trades the breadth and depth of Steiner’s product knowledge, technical support and huge inventory is very well known. Steiner is involved with many Chicago area landmark projects which are admired by Chicagoans and visitors to this great city everyday.