POM Has a Long History

About Us

In the Beginning:

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 prize 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.  
(Take a moment to view our Historical Parking Photos)  Also, film courtesy of Oklahoma History Center and online article courtesy of Oklahoma Historical Society.

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 factory in Russellville, Arkansas, in late 1963 and early 1964.  POM Incorporated was organized on October 1, 1976, to purchase Rockwell International's parking meter business and their Russellville, Arkansas, plant.

The Growing Years:

In 1981, POM parking meters came under its current 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.

Where We're Going:

Following continual improvement and development, POM produces a broader line of electronic parking meters and accessories than any company in the world. We market our digital parking meters throughout the world and are expanding our export business. We produce parking meters using coins of many nations, with legends in various languages as required for foreign countries. Payment methods for our meters now include coins, tokens, smart cards (open or closed system), credit cards and (soon) mobile payment.

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.  Our facility is ISO 9001:2008 quality certified, and we are today the only producer of 100% American-made parking meters.

Our capabilities include mechanical and electronic design, prototyping and production; zinc and aluminum die casting; plastics molding; electrostatic powder painting; machine shop; mechanical and electronics assembly lines; quality control and testing; software development; marketing, advertising, and sales; customer training.  To insure that our designs yield the maximum energy efficiency, POM has acquired highly accurate V-A-W precision  energy sampling equipment capable of measuring extremely low current requirements.   We have found that this is the only equipment available which is capable of sampling at the speeds required to obtain accurate power consumption results.   This equipment is used in conjunction with a custom software system allowing the measurement of microwatts consumed over an extended and predefined period of time.   This is the only reliable procedure to accurately determine the energy efficiency of the CMOS circuitry developed by POM engineers.  POM is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  It is the policy of POM Incorporated to provide Equal Employment Opportunity to all qualified persons, including veterans, without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation.  POM also welcomes the opportunity to utilize disadvantaged vendors and suppliers who are certified W-DBE, M-DBE, or D-DBE enterprises.  Review the products on this website, and if you are a woman-, minority-, and/or disabled-owned disadvantaged business enterprise,  please contact POM's purchasing department to be included in our Requests for Quote on purchased parts and services.