| About Us
Our History
L.W. Allen, Inc. is a full-service distributor of pump and control systems in Madison, Wisconsin, with a long history of serving the municipal water and wastewater industry in the upper Midwest.
L. W. Allen Founded
The company was founded by Lou Allen. He began his career in 1927 working for Fairbanks Morse, a company manufacturing pumps and scales in Beloit, Wisconsin. Fairbanks Morse moved their pump production to Kansas City, Kansas, and Lou decided to remain in Wisconsin and open his own distributorship.
In November of 1961, Lou began L.W. Allen, Inc., a distribution company for several well-known pump products, including Fairbanks Morse. His incorporation in the State of Wisconsin marked the beginning of more than 50 years of sales and service under our current name. During that time, we have stayed focused on providing a very personalized level of service to the end-users, consulting engineers, and contractors who rely on us for quality equipment and support.
Altronex Formed
In 1971, we formed Altronex, a division of L.W. Allen. Altronex is our controls group providing a wide range of custom-designed control systems for automation, supervision, and monitoring of pump equipment, flow control, and related processes. We manufacture control systems in-house under the Altronex brand name. These systems are all engineered, built, programmed, and tested in our UL508 and UL698 (Intrinsic) certified production facility in Madison, Wisconsin.
The vast majority of the control systems built during the 1970s used proprietary features and multiple circuit boards that were manufactured in small batches. Unfortunately, these simple dedicated controllers were prone to drift, not overly reliable, and susceptible to lightning. In the late 80’s, the municipal water and wastewater industry changed forever with the implementation of the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). PLCs offered a smart controller that was programmable to perform both control and telemetry needs. They were also a non-proprietary product that could be purchased from numerous supply houses throughout Wisconsin. Technology, coupled with mass production, slowly drove pricing down to an affordable level over the years. Micro PLCs were introduced in the early 90’s, signaling the end of large national control houses and their custom controllers.
Further Growth
Growth in both the pump division and the controls group resulted in a move to a larger building in 1990 doubling our size. That move, into what is now our current location at 4633 Tompkins Drive, was followed by a warehouse expansion in 1997.
SJE Purchase
In 2021, L.W. Allen and Altronex were purchased by SJE Inc. Since 1975, SJE has grown into a leading controls technology company throughout the United States and Canada, as well as into global markets. You can read more about SJE and the purchase at www.sjeinc.com.
