Our History

Twenty-three years ago, In April of 1987, Harry B. Cordes and Fredrick R. Cordes set forth on a journey to make their dream into reality. The Cordes’ became the founders of Cordyne International Corporation.

It all began in a Trammel Crow business park with minimum inventory of Red Lion Controls, Inc., Banner Engineering Corp., and Turck Multi-Prox products. At its inception, Cordyne’s facility was a 1,200 square foot facility – compared to the 30,000 square foot facility that we have today. It was a new adventure, and the business started slowly, but within a period of 2-3 years it started turning a profit.

Accounting, invoicing, purchase orders, all other record keeping was done on a Radio Shack “Tandy AT” computer. It had a 20 Meg hard drive and cost over $ 5,000. The software was “home grown” us a general purpose package called “Enable” which has long become extinct. E-mail and internet, as we know today, did not exist. Documents could only be transferred via fax machines, which were recently introduced…and who ever heard of “cell phones”?

Funds for capitalization of the company were provided from the personal assets of the two officers without the use of outside funding. Cordyne was founded as a “high-tech” industrial distributor of state-of-the-art electronic controls and instruments for the general industrial market.

As years passed, the distribution business became increasingly competitive. As the internet became more advanced, principle companies began selling directly via that medium. As a result, Cordyne began to focus on “value-added” products such as designing and building controls for customers. The good decisions lead to Cordyne of today.

In later years Ben Devine and Fred Cordes became partners and continued investing in the company and its people. Justin Morgan came aboard bringing his engineering talent and foresight with him.

 “Always remembered never forgotten” We give thanks to our founder.

In Loving Memory of our Founder – Harry B. Cordes

Those of us fortunate to have known Harry B. Cordes can attest to his brilliance as both an engineer and businessman.  Harry was committed to making Red Lion Controls and Cordyne successful and lasting businesses, Harry’s work ethic, vision, and integrity became the strength of the companies. Harry’s business decisions, may difficult ones, we made in the best interest of the company’s long-term successes.

Harry has a great sense of humor, was quick-minded and witty. He saw the best in people and their potential.  Cheerful in the office, Harry was appreciative of a good-natures office prank, which may have occurred all too often in the early years.

Harry’s talents and ambitions went well beyond the office. He was an exceptional photographer, wood-worker, model builder architects and quit the dancer at the annual company party – to name a few.

Harry was born in Great Bend Kansas in February 9, 1929 where his parents immigrated from Germany in 1928. Harry was the first member of his family to attain a college degree in 1951. Although his degree was in Physics, Harry always had a penchant for electrical engineering. Upon graduating, he has an immediate opportunity to satisfy his interest by landing a position as an electrical scientist with the U.S. Navy Underwater Sound Lab in New England (Connecticut), where he worked detection devices.

After a stint with the Electric Boat Company devising steering systems for one of the first atomic submarines, Harry joined the Boeing Company in 1954, where he developed the first flight simulator for the Air Force. After he left Boeing in 1961, he had series if of extensive engineering positions with other companies, which ultimately landed him in New York as Vice President for Fincor and, later for Wright Hoist and Crane Company. In 1972, he decided to go out on his own and founded Red Lion Controls, equipment manufactures.