IAP Inc. is founded by Bob Theis, a former fan manufacturer’s representative. Bob saw the need for custom, heavy-duty industrial fans not offered by his principal. With his background in fan design, he formed Industrial Air Products (IAP).
Throughout 1974 and 1975, Bob served as Industrial Air Products’ sole employee. He engineered, marketed, and sold all of IAP’s blowers. Construction of the fans was contracted out to fabrication shops.
IAP contracts construction for a 60′ x 40′ manufacturing facility on a former potato farm in Phillips, Wisconsin.
By this time, IAP has seven employees. IAP secures a contract for a representative office in Michigan. This representative office is IAP’s first manufacturer’s representative.
IAP continues to add representative offices and establishes a national presence with the addition of its first National Sales Manager. This was the first major change in direction for IAP. The change had a purpose of reorganizing the company from a regional job shop to a national supplier of industrial fan equipment. IAP is unanimously approved for AMCA membership.
IAP conducts its first national sales meeting in Wausau, WI.
IAP begins to utilize computerized CAD as its primary design tool. IAP expands its Phillips, WI facility for a 3rd time to over 40,000 square feet of capacity.
IAP receives AMCA registration of its fan performance test chamber. IAP hosts its second national sales meeting later that same year in Wausau, WI.
IAP engineering becomes one of the first fan manufacturing engineering departments to utilize Finite Element Analysis software. The software has since been updated and remains a current tool for the design and development of blower impellers.
IAP receives AMCA license for the backwardly-inclined fan line.
IAP releases one of the first fan selection software programs to the market. IAP Hosts its third national sales meeting on the shores of Lake Superior in beautiful Ashland, WI.
IAP expands marketing and is heavily present at industry trade shows and in print.
IAP hosts its fourth national sales meeting, once again in Ashland, WI. IAP releases a second major revision to its fan selection software program, FanPro, which is now fully Windows-driven.
IAP adds sales offices in St. Paul, MN.
IAP Hosts its fifth national sales meeting, in Cable, WI at the world famous Telemark Lodge. IAP releases its fan drawing software, Fan Wizard, and fan pricing software, Fan Value.
IAP is awarded a major contract for tunnel ventilation, one of the largest projects of its kind to date.
IAP is awarded a major contract for wastewater treatment odor control equipment in Los Angeles County. Besides two 1250 hp fans, the project scope includes a number of other fans, motors, VFDs, silencers, oil circulations systems, and numerous other ancillary equipment.
IAP expands its Phillips, WI facility to 62,000 square feet capacity. IAP hosts its sixth national sales meeting, returning to Wausau, WI for the meeting. Major improvements to FanPro (selection software) are released and include the ability to select multiple fans and save them to a project schedule.
While continuing to build its North American sales force, IAP secures more and more sales beyond North America with significant exports to Europe, Australia, Africa, and the Middle East.
The United States lost one-third of all manufacturing jobs in the first 10 years of the 2000s and manufacturing sees a significant downturn in available work in the last two years of the decade. IAP is not impervious; however, continues to provide quality equipment and service, sustains through the great recession, and is back to previous employment levels by the end of 2011.
The number of IAP full time employees is at an all-time high and sales are at record levels.
IAP expands its Phillips, WI factory to 65,000 square feet, Laxandits Phillips, 200 sheltered loading dock and cold storage area.
Founder Bob Theis passes away. IAP continues to grow, securing major contracts in the steel and dairy industries this same year. They are both the type of fan projects that require adaptive custom engineering alterations to standard fans; exactly the type of work that Bob founded IAP on and would proudly tout.
IAP adds a second high definition 30′ plasma burn table. This addition improves overall manufacturing efficiency while maintaining the high quality standards for which IAP is known.
