The HITRAN Corporation roots go back to 1924 when John C. Hindle Sr. and Ambie Hardwick founded Hardwick-Hindle Company. Hardwick-Hindle had various lines of products including power resistors, switches and rectifiers. Unfortunately the company barely made it through the Great Depression and was eventually sold. One part became National Lockwasher and the other became Ohmite.
Throughout the 30's John Hindle Sr. worked in advertising and sales for various companies whose products included chicken raising equipment and photographic supplies. He did not get back into the transformer business until 1939 when he formed a partnership with an engineer from the Sperry Corporation and started the New York Transformer Company. New York Transformer served the war effort and the elevator and machine tool industries. It was eventually moved to Alpha, New Jersey in 1945. John Hindle Sr. left New York Transformer in 1946 and formed his own new company, Eastern Transformer Company.
Looking to get into the manufacturing business after WW2, John Sr's son John Jr. started ETRACO Manufacturing in 1948. ETRACO focused on building TV Antennas, towers and rotators. John Sr's interest was in Sales and John Jr's was in Manufacturing so in 1949 John Sr. closed Eastern Transformer to join forces with his son. In 1950 ETRACO was renamed Hindle Transformer Company. At that time the company focused on small custom designed transformers. The elevator industry provided a large amount of early business for the company.
Hindle Transformer became well known in the industry as a source for engineered solutions coupled with very reliable product quality and delivery. At one time Hindle products were favored in several key military applications.
The business gradually grew to the point where it occupied almost all of the buildings on the Hindle farm in Flemington, NJ. In 1961, the company was merged with Connecticut based York Research and moved to a newly built facility in Putnam, Connecticut.
