Wieland Electric recently celebrated the company’s 100th birthday at its Canadian headquarters in Oakville, Ont.

Friedrich Wieland founded the company on October 7, 1910 in Germany, with the goal of creating a detachable electrical connector. One hundred years later, this product is the basis for today’s terminal strips. The company evolved from a small electric company to Wieland Electric GmbH, an international company that is still family owned and operated today.

In 1950, the company began mass production of the standard DIN rail mount terminal block, and eventually expanded its product offering to include electrical connectors, printed circuit board connectors and additional technologies – from electronic tube calculator to data acquisition systems.
 
Wieland opened its Canadian operations in 1989, and expanded into the United States and the United Kingdom that same year. In 1990, the company opened a location in France, and expanded to Italy, Spain, Poland, China and the Czech Republic during the next decade.

In 1997 and 2003, Wieland acquired two companies – Stocko and Schleicher – and further expanded its product line.

Today, with an official slogan of “Contacts are green,” the company has established environmentally friendly practices in its operations across the globe.