Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Inc., the Pullman-based producer of energy protection devices and systems, is enjoying a three-pronged surge in growth that it expects will remain energized for a number of years.

The 27-year old company is experiencing steady strong growth in its product lines, the industrial and commercial sectors it supplies in addition to electric utilities, and in a growing number of countries it has entered, says Ed Schweitzer, SEL's founder, president, and CEO.

Schweitzer declines to disclose the company's revenues but says they're on a consistently upward trajectory, and he expects 15 percent annual growth in coming years.

"SEL invents, designs, manufactures, sells, supports, and teaches most anything to do with the control, protection, and automation of electric power," Schweitzer says. SEL's products and systems minimize blackouts and electrical-system damage for heavy power users, such as mining operations, petroleum refineries, universities, hospitals, and other commercial and industrial operations, he says.

The company's products and systems range from a credit card-sized communications-encryption device to help guard against cyber attacks, to a self-contained modular control house the size of a railroad freight car. Product prices range from $1,500 to more than $1 million.

SEL keeps constant downward pressure on its own prices, Schweitzer asserts.

"We're always looking at efficiencies and sharing them with customers," he says. "That makes us more efficient and competitive throughout the world."

SEL's equipment is operating in 140 countries, the most recent of which include Hungary and Macedonia.

The company topped 2,500 employees worldwide this spring, and as of last week, it has openings for 304 more positions, including engineers, manufacturing technicians, and college interns.

Schweitzer says he expects the company will have a net increase of more than 600 employees this year alone. More than 300 new SEL employees will be based in Pullman, where the company's five-story, 90,000-square-foot corporate headquarters building and its 200,000-square-foot manufacturing plant are located in the Port of Whitman County's Pullman Industrial Park.

SEL recently started construction on a $7 million, three-story office building, to be called the Solution Delivery Center, at its 92-acre campus. The center will enable customers to operate, test, and configure certain equipment prior to delivery, Schweitzer says.

The concept of the center was triggered by a product line called the Integrated Communications Optical Network, which SEL introduced last year. The network is designed to provide utilities, transportation systems, manufacturing companies, and other industrial concerns, with secure means of communications to support their critical applications.

The network enables attended and remote sites, called nodes, to communicate securely with each other. Schweitzer says the distance between network nodes often spans miles or even state lines, and in most cases, the SEL manufacturing plant is the only place the network equipment is ever at one location. The Solution Delivery Center, however, will provide classroom-sized labs for SEL's customers to operate all of the equipment at one site.

"Customers will be able to go in and see the equipment working together and make the changes they want," Schweitzer says. "Then it will be shipped off to different locations."

Prior to launching the Solution Delivery Center project, initial trials of the concept for it were so well received by customers that SEL has decided to dedicated an entire floor of the 70,000-square-foot building to it. The center also will house engineering, research, and conference space.

The structure will be SEL's 11th building on its campus, including a 17,000-square-foot events center that's used for corporate and community gatherings.

SEL also is constructing a $10 million, 105,800-square-foot office and manufacturing building in Lewiston, Idaho, that will be located in the Lewiston Business & Technology Park, about a half mile south of the Snake River.

SEL expects to employ 250 people at the Lewiston facility within three years.

The Lewiston and Pullman projects are scheduled to be completed in September and October, respectively. Vandervert Construction Inc., of Spokane, is the contractor on both projects, and Bernardo Wills Architects PC, also of Spokane, designed them.

SEL also is expanding its 137,000-square-foot manufacturing complex in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, by 68,500 square feet to increase production there.

The plant in Mexico assembles complete systems of panels and control houses. Protective relays and other components used in those panels and housings are manufactured in Pullman, Schweitzer says.

SEL also operates a manufacturing plant in Lake Zurich, Ill.

The company has 47 additional engineering and support offices in the U.S. and 35 such offices internationally.

"We're looking to be close to customers with offices all over the world," Schweitzer says. "Spokane and Coeur d'Alene are possibilities, but we haven't found any property we're interested in."

SEL's Spokane-area customers include Avista Corp., Inland Power & Light Co., and Spokane Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Geographically, SEL could be based in any number of places, Schweitzer says.

"I like living in Pullman and my family spends a lot of time here," says Schweitzer, who was raised in the Chicago area. "Folks who want to come here stay here a long time. They enjoy what they're doing."

Schweitzer introduced SEL's employee stock ownership plan in 1994, and the company now is entirely employee owned, he says. That keeps all employees interested in improving efficiency and looking for ways to increase profitability, Schweitzer says.

"SEL is a conservative company within a conservative industry," he says. The company has been able to maintain and control its growth, he says, by focusing on his original vision of making electric power safer, more reliable, and more economical. That's a philosophy he has espoused since he invented the first all-digital protective relay in 1982, while a graduate student at Washington State University. SEL shipped its first digital protective relay in 1984.

Schweitzer says the company reinvests revenues into new products and ideas.

"We have a huge emphasis on internal research and development," he says. "We don't go for government grants."

SEL constantly looks for ways to increase vertical integration in its manufacturing processes, Schweitzer says. For instance, the company now manufactures some injection-molded plastic parts formerly made by contract manufacturers.

"We got an injection molding machine because we had to understand the process," he says. "Once we had a machine, we could see where there was waste. Sometimes there was more waste than part."

SEL then found ways to cut down on the waste from injection molding and even recycles some of the remaining waste to manufacture other parts.

The company also has invested in equipment to automate the manufacturing process and has trained employees to program and operate the machines.

"That's how a career can get started," he says.

In its next foray into vertical integration, SEL plans to produce its own ferrites, which are ceramic-like iron-oxide materials used in switches, power supplies, and transformers, Schweitzer says.

"We had to know a lot about the materials," he says. "So, we thought we could make them ourselves. Within a year, we'll be making our own ferrites instead of buying them from halfway around the world."

SEL covers all of its products with a 10-year warranty, but, in practice stands behind them indefinitely, Schweitzer says.

"In 27 years in business, we've never charged a customer for repair or replacement of anything we've ever made," he says.