- About Us
- Company History
History of SP Industries Inc.
We are proud to be the waste management equipment leaders. For over 50 years, we have been providing world-class equipment and service. We started our company at the dawn of the waste management manufacturing industry, and have maintained our leadership up through today’s modern industrial services. We’d like to share a bit of our proud history as a guide to helping you understand just how far the waste management business has come.
SP Industries was established as a manufacturing facility in 1957, initially operating as Quality Steel Fabrication. As the name implies, the company specialized in custom fabrication, working with such companies as Caterpillar Tractor, GMC, Excello Corp. and Lockheed Manufacturing, among many others. The company also built compactor rams and frames for Spartan Waste-Pac, a company that was the original designer, patentee and manufacturer of refuse reduction equipment.
In 1965, Quality Steel purchased Spartan Waste-Pac and continued to expand into the solid waste equipment market, phasing out the job-shop, custom fabrication operations. That focus remains our core business today, building on the work of our founders and improving our processes and equipment as the industry expanded and needs changed.
In 1976, Quality Steel sold controlling interest to Jacklin Steel and Supply Co. of Lansing, Michigan, which also purchased Purvis Brothers of Traverse City, Michigan. The combined new company was renamed to Quality Products. By 1981, Quality Products was considered a leader in refuse handling equipment.
Quality Steel administration later opted to move that operation to Kalamazoo, Michigan. But several of Quality’s long-term employees balked at the move, and elected to start a new company.
Since then, that new corporation, SP Industries Inc., has maintained its position as the leading waste handling equipment manufacturer in the world. Our innovative approach to business never stops, and culminated in SP Industries achieving its first patent in 2007 on the NP-165 Loading System. This unit allows paper product to be loaded directly into a standard over the road trailer, saving thousands of dollars in material handling costs for the newspaper industry.
Today, SP Industries continues to explore the world of waste handling, developing new systems and continuing its long tradition of customer service, innovation and creativity. We won’t stop innovating and building on our proud tradition of serving the industry we helped to create. We’re ready to grow, and stand ready to satisfy our customer’s current and future waste handling equipment needs with innovative & forward thinking systems!