Our Story

As industrial technology evolved, customers looked to suppliers like Electro-Mec for additional technical services beyond motor sales and repair. With an aging installed industrial base, the region had growing demand for updated drive and automation systems. Building on their motor expertise, Electro-Mec launched a drives division in 1994. By 1999, that division had expanded into a full-service drives and automation systems integrator called Electro-Mec Automation.

Electro-Mec Automation experienced such impressive growth in just a few short years that its parent company decided to sell it, so they could refocus on their core motor business. Electro-Mec wanted to put their full-service drives and automation company into the best hands possible, so they approached two of the key engineers working in the business about a purchase opportunity — Mike Gunniers and Walt Dollard. In December 2001, Electro-Mec Automation and its 20 employees officially became Premier Automation, and a vision for a modern industrial automation engineering company was born.

In 2008, Mike Gunniers and Walt Dollard Won the regional Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for manufacturing distribution businesses. The award was in recognition of their entrepreneurship and business growth since founding Premier Automation.

"What do you plan to do next?" After winning the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year award, this was the question Premier Automation was asked – and the question that inspired PanelShop.com. The vision of developing an eBusiness platform where customers could configure their own electrical control panels took four years of development and finally became a reality in 2012. PanelShop.com brought panel building into an eCommerce format, allowing customers to build a custom control panel online in seconds, view an instant quote and engineering drawings, and purchase it on the spot.

In 2015, Premier Automation acquired Industrial Automation and Control, Inc., a leading automation systems integrator in the Pittsburgh area. The acquisition expanded Premier's depth of engineering services and strengthened its ability to respond quickly to customer needs across controls and automation.

As Premier Automation continued to grow, re-branding became necessary to reflect its commitment to finding the most innovative answers for its customers' industrial automation challenges. The new brand preserved Premier's original vision while positioning the company to grow on a national and international level.

Premier Automation expanded operations into Alpharetta, Georgia, officially opening its doors for production in October 2019. To better serve customers across the Southeastern United States, the Premier team worked closely with local and state officials for nearly a year before finalizing the purchase of a new facility and 6.5 acres of property in Forsyth County – extending Premier's drive systems, panel building, and automation capabilities to a second region.

As Premier Automation continued to grow, so did a new idea: that some of the best answers to the industry's biggest automation and controls challenges were already sitting inside the company – in the conversations engineers were having with customers every day. Premier launched Premier Labs to give employees a path to act on that insight, turning field-tested engineering knowledge into new, purpose-built companies designed to meet needs the industrial automation industry actually has. Labs became Premier's venture studio, built around the people already closest to the problem.

Premier opened the Premier Innovation Hub, a new facility in Westmoreland County, PA, built to expand Premier Automation's manufacturing and contract manufacturing operations and give the company room to grow. The Hub was also designed with the future in mind – planned to house Premier Labs and the ventures it launches, along with shared prototyping and testing space for the region's broader manufacturing workforce.

With over 120 employees, Premier Automation’s vision remains the same as they strive to help local, national, and international companies become more technologically advanced, efficient and competitive through innovative answers and passionate engineering.