Brithinee Case Study

Brithinee Case Study

Title: The Brithinee Electric Company
Time Context: 1999
Summary:
Brithinee Electric was founded in October, 1963, in Colton, California, by Wallace and Zora Brithinee and their identical twin sons, Donald P. and Wallace P. Brithinee. The firm repaired electric motors for industrial plants in Southern California. Soon, however, the family members purchased a facility at 491 West N Street in Colton, from David Alvarado. Alvarado, born in 1884, was a descendent of California's very first non-native family and its first governor. The site was modified in order to repair electric motors. That site, at the corner of Fourth and N Streets, lay in the afternoon shadow of Mt. Slover, a unique geological feature, rich in limestone, in the San Bernardino valley. Lime kilns near Mt. Slover dated back to the 1850's, and the California Portland Cement Company began the far more complex process of making cement in 1891. The cement plants in Colton and Riverside, among the oldest in the United States, were important sources of business for Brithinee Electric in those early years, as they are today. The Brithinee family members purchased an additional parcel of land from California Portland Cement at 620 South Rancho Avenue in 1971 and constructed a new motor repair and sales facility there. The facility then measured 12,378 square feet, on one acre. The building was expanded in 1978 to 19,178 square feet. In 1992, Brithinee Electric expanded its motor sales and motor controls operations at an additional facility acquired that year. This building added 14,500 square feet at 680 South Rancho Avenue to the operation. In 1999, in anticipation of continued growth, the company acquired adjacent land surrounding the original two sites on Rancho Avenue for a total of 7.5 acres. We reconfigured the property lines, selling some of the vacant land for the construction of an industrial park, and leaving us with 3.62 acres along Rancho Avenue for its main facilities.  Brithinee Electric...