Who are you doing business with when you buy a Spotter Pendant?

We began in 1969 – when Eugene Oard, James Roe and Raymond Tate organized under Tate and Roe Equipment Company to develop and sell electrical switches.

October of 1971 – SPOTTER Trademark was officially registered.

March of 1976 – Tate and Roe Equipment Co was Incorporated in the State of Texas.

August of 1978 – Tate and Roe Equipment Co Incorporated changed its name to Spotter Controls, Inc.

December 1981 –US Patent was granted by the commissioner of Patents and Trademarks to Eugene Oard for inventing the SW-2 Two Speed Switch. The benefits of the unique design of the switch were quickly recognized and provided Spotter a competitive advantage.

Later – through an agreement with Shepard Niles we added the SW-5 Five Speed Switch to our product offering for the Spotter Series C.
The strong switch offering, coupled with a rugged, well designed enclosure, positioned Spotter well in the market and sells grew.

Eugene Oard later purchased a majority of the stock and continued to grow the SPOTTER brand independently with Mildred Strother as the operating manager – until she passed away in 2000.

Unit sales of larger crane pendants began to decline after 1985 – as crane manufacturers shifted to smaller, lighter, less expensive plastic pendants. However, many heavy industrial users remained loyal to the SPOTTER Series C Pendant for use on their cranes and even today we continue to supply Series C pendants and repair parts to a base of established customers.

August 2001 – Eugene Oard retired from Spotter operations – currently he serves on our board providing expertise and guidance. His daughter acquired the company in 2001 after decades of experience working with him in engineering and production in an overhead crane manufacturing company. Spotter transitioned to an independent entity – family owned and operated.

In early 2003 – We knew we needed to evolve! We responded by designing an ergonomic pendant to compete in the changed market place, and fill a need for heavy duty ergonomic controls for environments where light plastic pendants struggle. The goal for our new pendant design was to remain loyal to our brands ruggedness by following in the footsteps of the Series C – while designing around the need for a significantly reduced footprint!

In late 2004 -the SPOTTER Mini Series Pendant was launched!

We currently have a new innovation project to make the SPOTTER Mini even better – stay tuned for updates on our blog.