BLACKMER CELEBRATES 115 YEARS OF PUMPING

Blackmer^® is proud and honored to be celebrating 115 years of unparalleled product performance, superior service and support, innovation, and a commitment to total customer satisfaction. This milestone is a tribute to the people, partners, and the products that have allowed Blackmer go above and beyond with our passionate commitment to innovative technologies that positively impact the world.

Before the turn of the 20th century, a rotary pump was generally understood to be a “gear pump,” consisting primarily of two meshing gears which trapped liquid between the gear teeth and the pump housing creating small sealing cavities that transported fluid as it rotated, forcing the liquid out the other side. But in 1899 R. M. Blackmer came up with a vane-type pump design that was an important departure from the old gear principle. In contrast to the flow rate from a gear pump that drops steadily as the gear teeth wear away, the loss from a vane-type pump is practically negligible. As the vanes wear away at the tips, they simply move further out of the rotor slots to self-adjust and maintain the original rate.

Blackmer couldn’t have picked a better time to invent this ingenious type of pump. The advent of the automobile was giving the country a new thirst for gasoline and oil. The petroleum industry was growing by giant strides and the young firm was prepared to expand with it. The original Blackmer vane pump has fathered a family of hundreds of different pump models.

Today, Blackmer markets these pumps along with other fluid and gas technologies worldwide into a multitude of applications within the Process, Energy, Transport and Military & Marine markets.

Blackmer: The First 100 Years:

1899	Robert Blackmer invents new rotary vane pump technology that is the predecessor to today’s sliding vane pumps.
1903	Blackmer incorporates the Blackmer Pump, Power and Manufacturing Company in Petoskey, MI
1914	Blackmer becomes supplier to U.S. military.
1925	Blackmer relocates to Grand Rapids, MI, where its headquarters remain to this day
1950	Blackmer introduces integral mechanical seal
1954	Blackmer designs first liquefied gas pumps and produces first sliding-vane LPG pump
1964	Company is purchased by the Dover Corporation.
1968	Non-galling stainless steel pump introduced.
1980	First Blackmer reciprocating compressor introduced to the product line.
1987	ML4 pump introduced and outperforms gear pumps in viscous, high pressure applications.
1990	HD industrial compressors introduced.
1991	Company name changed from ‘Blackmer Pump’ to ‘Blackmer’ to reflect growing product line and single focused branding. Seal-less pumps introduced.
1993	Grand Rapids plant earns ISO-9001 certification.
1996	Purchased Hammond Engineering, a rotary vane compressor, hydraulic cooler, and screw compressor manufacturer in England.
2000	Acquires System One Pumps, an industry defining centrifugal pump that forced other competitive products to upgrade their pump designs.
2008	Blackmer joins Dover Corporation’s newly formed Pump Solutions Group(PSG™). Mouvex-Blackmer™ becomes an independent operating company within PSG. Other member companies include Wilden®, Neptune®, Almatec® and Griswold®.