The Beginning

Campbell-Sevey originated in 1937 as the Hoyt A. Sevey Company. Hoyt was an employee of Republic Flow Meters Co. of Chicago. In 1929 he moved to Minneapolis as a sales/service representative. As the Depression wore on in the ’30s, Republic Flow Meters told their factory direct sales team they needed to become independent reps, so Hoyt started his own company.

In addition to Republic Flow Meters, Hoyt began selling other product lines. He added Milton Roy chemical feed pumps, Prat Daniel mechanical dust collectors and a number of other boiler room and valve company manufacturers. In 1945 he picked up the Spence Engineering line, a line Campbell-Sevey still represents today.

Campbell and Sevey Join Together

Hoyt hired Chal Campbell in 1946 when he returned home from World War II . Chal handled all the service so Hoyt could focus on sales. Hoyt’s son, Bob Sevey, joined the company in 1956 after graduating from the University of Minnesota with a mechanical engineering degree and completion of 2 years of military service.

In 1961, Bob and Chal bought the business from Hoyt and incorporated it as Campbell-Sevey, Inc. with Bob as president. That same year Bob, on a handshake with owner Bud Fox, brought Kunkle Safety valves to Campbell-Sevey to complement the Spence valve account. That hand shake still enforces the longstanding relationship.

The business grew throughout the ’60s and ’70s with more product lines and additional employees. One move the company made in the early ’70s was to diversify into power plant and industrial process industries. Capital equipment such as pollution control precipitators, scrubbers, thermal oxidizers and bag houses was added.

Brian Ross Comes on Board

Brian Ross met Bob Sevey in 1973 when he was one of the Air Corrections division of UOP engineering sales team assigned to work with reps like Bob on a number of pollution control projects. Brian eventually came to work for Campbell-Sevey in 1975. Business continued to grow steadily. In 1984 Campbell-Sevey began representing Armstrong International which significantly increased the steam specialty segment of the business.

Chal retired in 1987 and Brian became a minority partner. In 1998 Bob decided to retire making Brian the majority partner and president. Mark Heilman, John Magnuson and Jeff Hoel became minority partners at that time. Steve Graves, who joined Campbell-Sevey in 2004, became a minority partner in 2012.