A legacy brand of ITW GSE.
AXA Power
Legacy brand
History of the AXA Power brand
AXA Power was originally founded in 1924 by Mr. Axel Åkerman whose name was also the name of the company until 1995.
In 1949, at the occasion of the company’s first jubilee, an employee wrote: “The company Axel Åkerman and the person Axel Åkerman are so close that the company’s history is identical to that of the person Axel Åkerman”.
Looking back, it's like Axel's values still float in the company. His sense of quality, his determination not to give up until the customer had his solution and his sense of what would be required in the future. Therefore, the company gained a good reputation in the industry.
Even, the product areas pointed into the direction of today's solutions: electricity, batteries and equipment for airports.
About Axel Åkerman
Axel Åkerman was born in 1896. His parents came from Sweden/Norway but moved to Denmark shortly after Axel’s birth. In 1910, Axel started as an apprentice within the field of electromechanics at the company Thomas B. Thrige, a very well esteemed Danish company, where he stayed till 1915. After completion of the apprentice ship, he went to Norway where he developed an even deeper passion for electricity and the utilisation thereof.
He established a small work shop in Odense in 1924 doing repair of electrical motors. Later, he took on sales and maintenance of car batteries as well. The company grew and 20 years later, it employed 20 persons.
He started doing repair of electric systems for cars but during the following decade the company grew and took on the production of transformers and rectifiers, products that became the core business of Axel Åkerman until the late 80ies.
In 1958, the local airport manager who happened to be the friend of the Åkerman family, asked Axel to manufacture a small 28 VDC rectifier for the start up of small aircraft – and so he did. This was the start of the current core business of AXA Power – actually, the unit worked without any problems till 1995, where we simply suggested the airport to exchange the unit with a modern 28 VDC unit out of marketing reasons…
From 1958 and onwards, the company manufactured many 28 VDC units that were primarily sold in Scandinavia and in the Netherlands. As the years went by, customers started asking for 400 Hz units to supply larger, commercial aircraft. Therefore, in 1985, Mr. Kjell Åkerman, third generation, and his staff decided to develop such a unit. At the same time, they made a promise to themselves: always to be at the forefront of the development.
The 400 Hz units from AXA became such a success that a new company, AXA Power, was created. During the first year, AXA Power manufactured approx 100 pcs of 400 Hz ground power units per year, but that ratio significantly changed over the following years.
In year 2000, AXA Power was acquired by the industrial conglomerate Illinois Tool Works, ITW, with head office in Chicago.
During the next decade, AXA Power continued under this brand name but in 2013, the name changed to ITW GSE to reflect the affiliation to ITW. Today, ITW GSE is considered the world's major manufacturer of 400 Hz units with equipment in major airports all over the world.
In the below article from Janes Airport Review, you can read about AXA Power (highlighted in yellow) and other ITW GSE legacy brands:
