10.01.2019

JLG kicks off 50th anniversary year

JLG has kicked off its 50th anniversary this week starting a year of celebrations marking its establishment by John L Grove in 1969.

On January 9th, 1969 Grove, along with Ben Stevens and Paul Shockey finally went public on their new manufacturing venture, named Condor Industries. At this point they had no product line and no manufacturing facility, merely an office in Greencastle, Pennsylvania.
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John Landis Grove

However within a month or two they purchased steel fabricator Fulton Industries and its plant in McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania, with 26 employees and contracts to build dredging hulls, shot blasting frames and drilling rig fabrications.
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The company and its first boom lift was originally named Condor

The first boom lift, originally a 27ft telescopic initially dubbed the Condor 2732 was unveiled in 1970 as an aircraft maintenance tool. It was also around this time that it was forced to abandon the Condor name and adopted JLG as the name for both the company and the product that would take lead to global success. But we will cover more on the early history of JLG later in the year.
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The first JLG boom lift 'in the iron' in 1970

JLG today is the clear market leader in the self propelled aerial work platform market, and recently celebrated the delivery of its 250,000th boom lift. See 250,000th JLG Boom
President Frank Nerenhausen said: “50 years is a remarkable milestone for both JLG and the access industry. Our founder not only started a company, but an entire industry. This is a key point of differentiation for the JLG brand. We continue to build on this legacy through continuous development of products, services and technology that advance safety for work at height.”

“John Grove’s inventive spirit continues to fuel product development at JLG. He blazed a trail that was never before travelled, and we mark 50 years with a steadfast focus on providing the industry with access equipment solutions that continue to bring his initial vision and purpose to life.”