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POM Incorporated
Copyright © 2004 POM Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Revised:
05/06/08.
| POM Incorporated was organized in 1976 to purchase
Rockwell International's parking meter business and their Russellville,
Arkansas, parking meter plant. This purchase was completed on October 1, 1976,
launching POM as an independent company. The history of our parking
meter line is the longest in the world. In 1933, the merchants of
Oklahoma City were trying to develop a way to increase traffic turnover
in front of their stores. Cars would park in a slot and remain
there for lengthy periods of time. Business was feeling the
effects of low traffic, so the merchants asked the local newspaper
editor, Carl C. MaGee, to help them. He sponsored a contest at the
University of Oklahoma for engineering students to develop a timing
device that would allocate set amounts of time for parking. A
grand price of $500 would be awarded to the student who could develop a
working model. This first parking meter was called the Black
Maria. After the contest, Carl MaGee developed and patented his
own design (see original patent #2,118,318), and with a partner started
the Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter Company.
Their first production run of parking meters was installed on one side
of the street in downtown Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935. Business was so affected
by the parking meters after only three days, the merchants on the other
side of the street demanded that parking meters be installed in front of
their businesses as well. The birth of the parking meter and POM
had occurred. Our company name,
POM, is made up of the initials of Park-O-Meter, which is the trademark
for our parking meters and is known world-wide. These early parking meters were produced at factories in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma, until late 1963 when Rockwell moved the business to the present POM factory in late 1963 and early 1964. In 1981, POM parking meters came under new ownership. Since that time POM has rapidly advanced its product line to meet the demand for parking meters in large cities. In 1992, POM began marketing and selling a fully electronic parking meter, the patented "APM" Advanced Parking Meter. No other parking meter manufacturer offered all of the APM's advanced features, such as a free-fall coin chute, a choice of solar or battery power, and a choice of LCD or high-visibility rotary signal. In 1985 POM began a major expansion of its facilities and today has the largest plant in the world devoted to the manufacturing of digital parking meters. Contract manufacturing is also an opportunity area for POM. In the past, significant contracts have been secured and the size of these contracts has increased in successive years. Following continual improvement and development, POM produces a broader line of electronic parking meters and accessories than any company in the world. We are marketing our digital coin and/or smartcard parking meters throughout the world and are expanding our export business. We are producing parking meters using coins of many nations, with legends in various languages as required for foreign countries. POM has been recognized by the U.S. Senate for making major strides in productivity improvement. POM has received the prestigious "E Award" and subsequent "E-Star" award from the President of the United States for Excellence in Exporting.
|
POM parking meters was organized in 1976 to purchase Rockwell International's parking meter business and their Russellville, Arkansas plant. This purchase was completed on
