Honeywell (NYSE: HON) is a major American multinational corporation that produces electronic control systems and automation equipment. It is a major supplier of engineering services and avionics for NASA, Boeing and the United States Department of Defense.

Honeywell is a Fortune 50 company with a workforce of over 100,000. The company is headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey. Its current chief executive officer is David M. Cote. Honeywell has many brands that consumers may recognize. Perhaps the most recognizable product is its line of home thermostats, particulary the iconic round type.

History

Honeywell Inc. was founded by and named after Mark C. Honeywell, a pioneer in automation technology. It was also founded by William R. Sweatt, who merged his company, Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company, with Honeywell Heating Specialties Company founded by Mark C. Honeywell, to make Minneapolis/Honeywell.

James H. Binger

The son of a doctor, James H. Binger grew up on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota. He attended the Blake School, where he met his wife Virginia. He earned an economics degree from Yale University and a law degree from the University of Minnesota. On graduation, he joined Minneapolis law firm Dorsey & Whitney, where a client was Honeywell.

In 1943 he joined Honeywell, and became its president in 1961 and its chairman in 1965. On becoming Chairman of Honeywell, Binger revamped the company sales approach, placing emphasis on profits rather than on volume. he also stepped up the companies international expansion - it had six plants producing 12% of the companies revenue. He also officially changed the company's corporate name from Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co to Honeywell ^[1]

From the 1950's until the mid-1970's, Honeywell was the United States importer of Pentax cameras and photographic equipment. These products were labeled in the U.S. Honeywell Pentax.

Under Binger's stewardship from 1961 to 1978 he expanded the company into such fields as defence, aerospace, computers and cameras. Through most of the 1960s, Honeywell was one of the six major computer companies (with IBM - the largest, Burroughs, UNIVAC, NCR, Control Data Corporation and Honeywell itself. Those, plus General Electric and RCA, would form the "Snowy White and the Seven Dwarfs" of computing). In 1970, Honeywell bought General Electric's computer division. He retired as Chairman in 1978, but remained as a consultant thoroughout his life. Scientific Data Systems was a "sideshow" player.

Today

The current "Honeywell International, Inc." is the product of a merger between AlliedSignal and Honeywell Inc. in 1999. Although AlliedSignal was the larger of the two, the combined company chose the name "Honeywell" for its superior brand recognition. However, it adopted AlliedSignal's corporate headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey in preference to Honeywell's former headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In 1991 Honeywell's computer division was sold to Groupe Bull.