This profile is in active compilation — some details are awaiting a cited source.

Independent Electric Machinery Company is an electric-motor repair and industrial-services house headquartered on Oliver Street in Kansas City, Kansas, founded in 1908 by John Launder and family-owned across three named generations of Launders. It rebuilds AC and DC motors, services switchgear and circuit breakers, repairs cranes, hoists, welders and railroad traction motors, and runs a field-service and predictive-maintenance operation, from a Kansas City headquarters completed in 2000 plus branch shops across Kansas and Missouri.

Description

Independent Electric Machinery Company — IEMCO in its own shorthand — is the kind of business the Registry’s Wyandotte County coverage has systematically missed: a century-old industrial service shop whose customers are water-treatment plants, power generators, railroads and heavy manufacturers rather than the public, and which therefore never appears in restaurant-and-destination press.

The company’s Kansas City headquarters at 4425 Oliver Street is a purpose-built facility the family completed on October 2, 2000, replacing a scattered footprint of buildings around Southwest Boulevard.1 From it the company rebuilds electric motors of both AC and DC type, tests and maintains switchgear and circuit breakers, inspects and repairs cranes and hoists, repairs welders and generators, and runs field service including vibration analysis and laser alignment.12 Emergency motor repair is available around the clock.2

Independent Electric is listed in the Wyandotte Economic Development Council’s locally-owned business directory under Specialized Services, with Charlie Brooks as the named contact.3

Goods and services

  • Electric motor repair and rebuild — AC and DC machines, including balancing and testing12
  • Switchgear services — switchgear testing and circuit-breaker maintenance, a line added in the 1990s–2000s1
  • Cranes and hoists — repair and inspection1
  • Welder and generator repair1
  • Railroad traction motors and generators — servicing and sales1
  • Field service and predictive maintenance — vibration analysis, laser alignment2
  • Equipment sales — new and used2

History

John Launder founded the business in downtown Kansas City, Missouri by purchasing a small firm called Used Machinery Company, renaming it, and hiring his first employee soon after.13 The company’s own history places this in 1908; the Wyandotte EDC directory copy — evidently an older version of the same company text — places it in 1906 and gives the purchased firm’s address as 2514 Summit in Kansas City, Missouri, with a move within the first year to 320 Southwest Boulevard.13 The company’s Facebook handle is IEMCO1908.4 Both dates are the company’s own claim at different times; neither is corroborated by an independent record located in this pass. “

The company’s own account of the intervening century: relocation to 300 Southwest Boulevard in 1929; supplying parts for crystal-set radios and electric automobiles in the 1920s and 1930s; building generators for the night lighting used by the Kansas City Monarchs; manufacturing electric motors for the U.S. Navy during the Second World War; repairing flooded motors and welders after the 1951 Kansas City flood; expansion under Jack Launder in the 1960s across several Southwest Boulevard buildings, at one point operating from as many as five; a self-service showroom in the 1970s and 1980s with some 2,000 square feet of electro-mechanical parts inventory; expansion to surrounding Midwest cities by 1985 and eventually six locations across Kansas and Missouri; the addition of switchgear testing and circuit-breaker maintenance in the 1990s and 2000s; and, under David Launder, construction of the present Kansas City headquarters, occupied October 2, 2000.1

The 1951 flood detail is worth noting for the Wyandotte County record: the flood that destroyed Armourdale and the Central Industrial District is here recounted from the repair side, as motors pulled out of drowned plants.

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Independent Electric Machinery Company — “Our Story” — asserts: founded 1908 by John Launder in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, by purchasing a small business called Used Machinery Company, renaming it and hiring a first employee; relocation to 300 Southwest Boulevard in 1929; supply of parts for crystal-set radios and electric automobiles; generators built for Kansas City Monarchs night lighting; electric motors manufactured for the U.S. Navy in wartime; repair of welders and flooded motors after the 1951 Kansas City flood; purchase of several Southwest Boulevard buildings under Jack Launder in the 1960s, operating from up to five locations; a 1970s–1980s self-service showroom with 2,000 sq ft of electro-mechanical parts; expansion to surrounding Midwest cities by 1985 and eventually six locations across Kansas and Missouri; addition of switchgear testing and circuit-breaker maintenance in the 1990s–2000s; construction of a new Kansas City headquarters under David Launder, move completed October 2, 2000. (Retrieved 2026-08-14. Note: curl to iemco.com returns a Cloudflare interstitial (HTTP 403); the page was retrieved through WebFetch.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  2. Independent Electric Machinery Company — Kansas City location page — asserts: address 4425 Oliver St, Kansas City, KS 66106; phone (800) 833-2610; hours Monday–Friday 7:00 AM–5:00 PM with 24/7 emergency service; services comprising electric motor repair and rebuild, switchgear services and circuit-breaker maintenance, field service and predictive maintenance, emergency motor repair, new and used equipment sales, vibration analysis and laser alignment; describes the company as “a family-owned industrial services company founded in 1908” with corporate headquarters in Kansas City and over 100 years serving Kansas and Missouri through five regional locations. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. Wyandotte Economic Development Council — locally-owned business directory, Specialized Services category, Independent Electric Machinery Co., Inc. entry — asserts: address 4425 Oliver St, Kansas City, KS 66106; phone 913-904-3311; contact Charlie Brooks (c.brooks@iemco.com); categorised “Locally Owned Business, LOB Specialized Services”; company copy stating the firm “began in 1906 as a two-man business,” that founder John Launder purchased a small business called Used Machinery Company at 2514 Summit in Kansas City, Mo., changed the name immediately, hired his first employee, and moved the firm to 320 Southwest Boulevard within the first year. This is the source of the 1906 date and the Summit Street address, both of which conflict with the company’s current site. (Retrieved by curl 2026-08-14.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Independent Electric Machinery Company — Facebook page — asserts: the company’s own social handle encodes 1908 as the founding year; page identifies as Kansas City, KS. ↩

Categories

On the record — ks.city/registry/independent-electric-machinery · record updated 2026-08-14