General Air Products Celebrates
its 90th Anniversary!
90 years ago, Robert F. Fremont Sr. found himself at a crossroads.
He had spent most of his life in real estate, developing communities in Springfield, Pennsylvania, even serving as the first president of the Delaware County Real Estate Board. But the stock market crash of 1929 didn’t spare him. Like so many others, he lost almost everything. His latest venture, a yacht-making company, while off to a promising start, was…sunk.
So in 1936, he pivoted.
He purchased a small office space on Market Street in Philadelphia and founded the Air Conditioning Company of Pennsylvania. Which, not long after, became the General Blower Company.
General Blower offered just about any product that moved air. Soot blowers, induced draft fans, custom-engineered airflow solutions of all kinds. If someone had a problem and it involved air, General Blower would offer something to address it. What began as an effort to rebuild after financial loss gradually became a small, family-run operation working out of a garage in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
But smaller didn’t mean lesser.
The family’s commitment to quality caught the attention of a local distributor who needed something specialized – an air compressor for a dry fire sprinkler system. This was the late 1960’s. General Blower designed it specifically for their application, built it, then Robert Jr. and his son Ray Fremont Sr. threw it in the back of their station wagon and delivered it. Over time, the distributor wanted more for their focus on the equipment needed in the budding fire sprinkler industry.
When that distributor was later acquired by Central Sprinkler (now Tyco / JCI) in the 1980s, orders started coming in from across the country. Almost overnight, what had been a custom fire protection job became a flagship product. And with that shift came a new name: General Air Products.
Over the decades, the company grew. New products. New faces. New capabilities. Bigger buildings. Broader reach.
But the core never changed.
As current President Ray Fremont Jr. says:
“Quality and service means a few specific things to us. First, everything that leaves our shop has to be the best product it can be. Design, components, testing, even the paint. If it has our name on it, it has to be done right.
Second, it means we’re here when the fire protection industry needs us. When you call, the person who answers the phone knows our equipment, understands the issues faced by fire protection contractors, and knows how to help.”
That mindset, that you should build things the right way and stand behind them once they leave the shop, is what has carried General Air Products through 90 years.
And as we reflect on that history, we’re also mindful of the people who operate where the rubber meets the road.
The contractors and technicians who install and maintain our equipment in dry and pre-action sprinkler systems all over the world.
As Ray puts it:
“The people in the field are the ones installing and maintaining these mission-critical systems every day. We need to make sure our compressors come out of the box ready to install and easy to maintain. Once they’re in, you should be able to leave that job-site confident that the next time you see that unit won’t be for an emergency – it’ll be for routine maintenance.”
90 years is a long time. Long enough to see industries evolve, standards change, and watch new generations step in to move forward.
Through it all, one thing has remained constant: a commitment to doing things the right way.
So as we mark this milestone, there’s only one thing left to say:
Thank you.
Thank you everyone who has been part of this story, whether you’re building, installing, maintaining, distributing, designing, or supporting our equipment. If you have worked with any piece of our equipment, you are part of these 90 years; that work is woven into our history.
We’re proud of all the work that has built this business over 90 years. And now we have the privilege to take that hard work into the future.