Happy Trane

Not to be confused with Chicago's big Crane Co. is prosperous little Trane Co. of La Crosse, Wis. Both sell comfort to the U. S. public, but there the parallel ends. Crane last week reported 1936 profits of $5,600,000 on sales of $78,000,000. Trane was proud to show earnings of $325,000 last year because it topped its previous record (1930) by more than 50%. And that profit was made on sales of only $3,000,000.

Trane was a pioneer in air conditioning and is now beginning to cash in. It has had preferred stock outstanding in public hands for years but the common has always been tightly held by the founder's family and friends. Last week it filed a registration statement for 255,000 shares of common, 62,500 shares of which will be offered to the public to finance further expansion.

In La Crosse last month the company held a jamboree in celebration of the opening of the fifth addition to the plant, the 25th anniversary of its entrance into the manufacture of heating equipment and the 50th anniversary of its founding as an obscure plumbing shop by James A. Trane. Plumber Trane's son Reuben went to the University of Wisconsin where he was captain of the crew. Not long after he graduated in 1910, his father decided to incorporate as a manufacturer of heating and plumbing supplies, made Son Reuben president, the job he has held ever since.

Father Trane is dead and it was Son Reuben who put the company into air conditioning. Progress was slow. As late as 1920 there were only 40 on Trane's payroll, only 159 by 1927. Today the total is nearly 1,000. On the day the new plant was opened last month with speeches, dancing and free beer, all the La Crosse employes chipped in to buy a half-page newspaper advertisement, surprising their boss with a THANK YOU, MR. TRANE.

"Today you are giving us a party to celebrate the Opening of Greater Plant 2 of the Trane Co.," the advertisement continued. "You have left nothing undone to make us happy in many ways. We owe you and the rest of the Management a lot. . . . We are not working for the Trane Co. We are working with the Trane Co. for a common good--yours and ours. We realize that this procedure may seem unusual, but we'd like to have you know just the way we feel. The very culmination of this message is proof of its sincerity." The message was signed by every Trane employe from Gottfried Abegglen to Leonard Zielke.

Tall, ruddy, white-haired at 48, President Trane is "Rube" to all La Crosse. In addition to his workers' THANK YOU, he got an 8-ft. floral valentine from the Trane Employes' Club as "The Merry Old Chief." An engineer by training, he owns 49% of his company's stock, his wife another 17%.

Trane Co. makes virtually every type of air-conditioning equipment except a heating unit, its specialty being the coils which it supplies to other air conditioners, including General Electric. Trane systems have been used on such major jobs as the New York Life Insurance Co. building in Manhattan, Wrigley Tower and Sears, Roebuck's building in Chicago, the House of Representatives office building and Supreme Court building in Washington.

Touted as one of the new applied sciences that were going to bust the slump, air conditioning is still small potatoes. The industry's total sales last year were less than $60,000,000 compared with some $38,000,000 the year before. But the rate of growth in small airconditioning concerns like Trane has been impressive. In 1933 Trane's sales were a piffling $743,000. Two years later they were $1,700,000. For 1937 the company has set a quota of $5,300,000, which would be 75% better than 1936.

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