History of Nortek
Nortek was incorporated in March 1996 as the results of a partnership separation between Atle Lohrmann and Ramon Cabrera, the founders of SonTek Inc.
During the period 1996-1999, Nortek and SonTek operated under a mutual agreement whereby Nortek did business primarily in Europe and Asia and SonTek did business primarily in North- and South America. Today, there are no formal or informal relationship between the two companies, nor are there any common elements in the respective hardware and software. Nortek operates in all countries but development and manufacturing is still based in Norway. The company has four international subsidiaries:
- NortekUSA (1999)
- Qmetrix (2002)
- NortekUK (2003)
- NortekChina (2003)
which provides sales, support, and services. The organization has about 50 full time employees and more than 15 have advanced degrees.
The hardware, firmware, and software that forms the basis for the various product lines has been developed by engineers still employed by the company. We expect this situation to continue, although we see an increasing trend also in development to outsource development tasks that are better and faster done by external consultants.
Since the start, Nortek has enjoyed annual revenue growth of 20-30% per year. The annual revenue of Nortek AS hit USD 10 mill for the first time in 2006.
