For George T. Hall Company, It's All Systems Go

When you grow to become a leader in the automatic controls and systems integration business and are successful at it for more than 75 years, especially in a competitive and crowded market like California and Nevada, you know that a company is doing many things right. In the case of the George T. Hall Co., the success stems from a staff that knows the controls business inside and out and has the ability to marry technological expertise with outstanding customer service. Together, it's an unbeatable combination.

Anaheim management team (left to right): Mike Burton, operations manager; Kerree Johansen, credit manager; Scott Smith, IT manager; and Jim Cramer, controller.

George T. Hall founded the company in southern California in 1932, selling travel trailers and butane trailer heaters. With a constant need to repair the control valves on oil heaters, Hall began distributing controls in 1948. That part of the business was so successful that, just seven years later, he discontinued the trailer business altogether. As the company grew, Hall saw the need to get the industry more attuned to the controls part of the HVACR business, and he was among three principals who formed the Controls Committee of the former Northamerican Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Wholesalers Association (NHRAW) — the predecessor to the Controls Council of HARDI.

As the automatic controls systems business expanded, so did the George T. Hall Co., both in terms of size and services, opening branches in southern California and moving its headquarters to its current Anaheim location in 1979. In the 1970s, the company began to specialize in controls for industrial processes and burner boiler systems, says Chuck Niemann, who joined the company in 1954 and succeeded Hall as president in 1975. In addition to its Anaheim corporate office, the company has a manufacturing office in Reno, Nev., and five branch locations — four in southern California and a fifth in Las Vegas.

Staying one step ahead of where the controls industry is going is a hallmark of the company. As buildings and process applications become “smarter” — relying on networked systems to control and regulate all aspects of their systems — George T. Hall has been there with solutions for customers, specializing in high-tech automation and communications. The company made a big leap forward in the area of systems integration in 2006 when it purchased Applied Industrial Controls, a systems integrator based in Reno. The acquisition helped to expand its market area and its expertise, says Dina Harris, vice president of sales and marketing.

“We had everything covered, from HVACR to burner boiler and industrial, but the piece that we were missing was the higher-end industrial — software integration,” says Harris, Niemann's daughter, who has been with the company full time since 1995 and worked there during high school and college. (“She was building catalogs when she was eight,” Chuck notes.) System integration is what customers will increasingly expect, she says. “Ten years from now, no one is going to want to buy stand-alone devices.” Harris says. “Our markets are flattening, and customers want their systems on a single platform.”

Roller Mill Machine Control Panel – Design Build by GTH.

The company manufactures custom control panels out of its two UL-listed panel shops — one in California and one in Reno — and you can find its work in commercial and industrial facilities across the country from national restaurant chains to large petrochemical facilities.

The company counts a wide variety of contractors among its customer base — from HVACR mechanical contractors to boiler and industrial contractors. Hotels and school districts as well as petrochemical, food and beverage, and aerospace businesses are also customers. Each of George T. Hall's branch locations has a staff with a diversified group of specialists. Even with its specialty in industrial controls, the lines between markets continue to blur, and the company is using its expertise in controls to make inroads into other applications, Harris says. “It's very exciting,” she says. “In a down economy, it's a challenge and an opportunity.”