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John Bean Co. - FMC - 1904-present - Lansing, Michigan

John Bean is one of the world's leading brands of automotive wheel service equipment. The company's roots began with a retired inventor, John Bean, in 1904. He founded the John Bean Spray Pump Company. When the company merged with a nearby food machinery company, it became the Food Machinery & Chemical Company (FMC). In 1996 Snap-On Corporation acquired the automotive equipment division from FMC and renamed it John Bean honoring the original founder.

From the start, John Bean was a pioneer in innovative technologies to meet the growing demands of the ever-growing automotive industry. During the early 1900's John Bean's state-of-the-art pressure pumps were often used as portable fire fighting pumps. When the pumps were mounted in trucks, one of the earliest motorized fire trucks came into being. In the 1940s Bean pioneered the high-pressure fog pump, a device now standard on most new fire-fighting vehicles.

Both Bean-equipped and Bean-bodied Fire Apparatus continued to be built through the 1970s in Lansing, Michigan.

Today Bean's parent firm, FMC - Food Machinery Co., is a large international firm specializing in military vehicles, food handling equipment and agricultural chemicals.

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Many trucks released by the Willys factory as pickups or "stripped chassis" were adapted by after-market manufacturers including John Bean Co. of Lansing, Michigan. These conversions also included Forward Control fire trucks built from the cab-over-engine trucks produced by Willys from 1956-65.

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In the 1940s FMC entered the defense business and began producing amphibious vehicles for the military. The company receives a $60 Million order for military vehicles during WWII.

In the 1980s FMC was awarded a $206 million contract to produce the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

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FMC History

From a continuous spray pump in California's orchards in the 1880s to some of the world's most sophisticated technology and equipment for the oilfield service, food processing and air transportation industries, FMC Technologies and its predecessor companies have a long history of technical innovation. FMC Technologies traces its roots to 1884 when inventor John Bean developed a new type of spray pump to combat San Jose scale in California's orchards. When neighbors clamored for the device, Bean Spray Pump Company was born.

At first, the company made agricultural equipment, but mergers in the late 1920s with makers of food processing equipment and cannery machinery for vegetables, created a larger company requiring a new name - Food Machinery Corporation.

By the mid-1930s, FMC was the world's largest manufacturer of machinery and equipment for handling fruits, vegetables, milk, fish and meat products. And as World War II began, FMC entered the defense business, making amphibious tractors and tanks for the military.

In the post-war boom, FMC introduced continuous freezers, providing for assembly-line production of pre-packaged frozen foods and made strides in sterilization of canned foods. The boom also prompted acquisitions in chemicals and petroleum equipment.

In 1961 the diverse, global company changed its name to FMC Corporation, and in 1966 sales topped $1 billion. By the early 1970s, FMC had 42,000 employees and a new Chicago headquarters. Throughout the 1980s, 1990s and into the 21st century, the company pursued new businesses. In 2000, FMC announced a plan to restructure into two companies - one a machinery and equipment business (FMC Technologies); the other a chemicals business (FMC Corporation). FMC Technologies, Inc. became a newly listed public company on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2001, with an intial public offering of approximately 17 percent of its stock