Cuny & Guerber

In 1924, Cuny & Guerber, Inc. was founded by Emile E. Cuny and Walter M. Guerber. They had met in High School and through that relationship Cuny & Guerber, Inc. was born. They shared a single desk in an office on Murray Street for a short period of time and then opened an office and warehouse at 46 W. Broadway in New York City (current location of the World Trade Center). At that time, New York City was not only a manufacturing center, it was also the location of the Central Purchasing Departments of all of the large corporations. Their business focus was always to Industrial marketplace, but in it's infancy they would promote and sell anything that would allow them to exist and survive. In addition, to the electrical supplies that was to become its current base, Cuny & Guerber, Inc. also sold bicycles, washing machines, and serviced our customers like no other distributor of Lionel trains. In 1940 the Company decided that NYC was a difficult location to conduct an electrical supply business as many of their customers were already migrating to the "suburbs" in Jersey City, New Jersey. A branch was opened at 126 Van Winkle Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey (directly across the Hudson River from midtown Manhattan). In 1943, Cuny & Guerber, Inc. had outgrown the facility on Van Winkle Avenue, and a location at 3468 Kennedy Boulevard, Jersey City, was selected to be the new location. The World War II era was very difficult. The Priority Books for the War effort were larger than the manufacturers price books. Most of the sales at that time were to Defense Plants and Shipyards. When conditions returned to normal after the War, New Jersey had become a highly industrialized area. There were paper mills, pharmaceutical companies, automobile assembly plants among the ever-growing field of machine builders. It became apparent that this ever-growing field was exactly the type of business that Cuny & Guerber, Inc. was going to service. It was approximately at this time the New York City location was closed and all of the corporate activities were under one roof on Kennedy Boulevard. It was at this time Cuny & Guerber, Inc. realized that the formula for success is to be a good, solid relationship with our growing customer base. In the late 1940's the second generation of Cuny & Guerber, Inc. came on board. In 1948 David B. Matthews, Sr. began working as an outside salesman as did Elmer J. Cuny in 1949. It was at this time Cuny & Guerber, Inc. was completely out of the appliance business. The location on Kennedy Boulevard continued to serve the companies needs, however, it was beginning to "stretch at the seams". During the 1980's the third generation of Cuny & Guerber, Inc., David "Chip" Matthews Jr., Steve Matthews, Raymond Cuny came on board before becoming outside sales people they served their apprenticeship as warehouse workers, drivers, shipping/receiving clerks and inside sales people. Currently, they serve as either outside sale people or as our computer system's administrator. In 1991, a location approximately three times the square footage of the Jersey City facility became available in Union City, New Jersey (directly across the Hudson River from midtown Manhattan). The building was completely renovated and updated including alarms, sprinklers, and any other required code requirements. 1999 is the year of the founding of C&G Automation Group. This group was founded to provide the necessary services for programming and system integration that neither the manufacturer nor the user or OEM has the time or resources to handle. There are 2 sides to this group; the PLC, Sensors, Controls and HMIs and the other side is the motion control side with servomotors and servodrives, ac drives and inverter duty gear motors. The group has over 45 years in combined factory automation experience adding to the illustrious 75 year history of CUNY & GUERBER, Inc.