Honeywell is a Fortune 500 company with a workforce of approximately 122,000, of which approximately 57,000 are employed in the United States. The company is headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey. Its current chief executive officer is David M. Cote. The company was part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index until it was replaced on February 9, 2008.

Honeywell has many brands that consumers may recognize. Some of the most recognizable products are its line of home thermostats (particularly the iconic round type), Garrett turbochargers, and automotive products sold under the names of Prestone, Fram, and Autolite.

History

Honeywell came into being through the invention of the damper flapper, a thermostat for coal furnaces, by Albert Butz, in 1885 and subsequent innovations in electric motors and process control by Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company tracing back to 1886. In 1906, Mark C. Honeywell founded Honeywell Heating Specialty Co., Inc. in Wabash, Indiana. Honeywell's company merged with Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company in 1927. The merged company was called the Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company. Honeywell was its first president, W.R. Sweatt its first chairman.

Sweatt leadership legacy

W.R. Sweatt and his son Harold provided 75 years of uninterrupted leadership for the company. W.R. Sweatt survived rough spots and turned an innovative idea – thermostatic heating control – into a thriving business. Harold, who took over in 1934, led Honeywell through a period of growth and global expansion that set the stage for Honeywell to become a global technology leader.

For more than thirty years the company annually presented the "H.W. Sweatt Engineer-Scientist Award" to individuals in recognition of their outstanding technical ability and contribution to technical accomplishment of significance for the company and their profession. The award program was canceled after the AlliedSignal and Honeywell merger in 1999.

James H. Binger

James H. Binger joined Honeywell in 1943, and became its president in 1961 and its chairman in 1965. On becoming Chairman of Honeywell, Binger revamped the company sales approach, placing emphasis on profits rather than on volume. He also stepped up the company's international expansion – it had six plants producing 12% of the companies revenue. He also officially changed the company's corporate name from Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co. to Honeywell.

From the 1950s until the mid-1970s, Honeywell was the United States importer of Pentax cameras and photographic equipment. These products were labeled in the U.S. Honeywell Pentax. Under Binger's stewardship from 1961 to 1978 he expanded the company into such fields as defense, aerospace, computers and cameras.