About Us
JBL Co is group of innovative companies dedicated to market leadership in Sampling, Weighing and Automation for mining and bulk material handling customers worldwide.
- Integrated Manufacturing
- Research and Development
- Engineering and Design
- Installation and Installation Assistance
- Parts & Service
- Attended and unattended weighing systems
- Complete system integration of your PLC controls
Company History
In 1937, Armistead Rosser Long, a former mine superintendent with the New River Company, teamed with his son, John B. Long, to form the Long Super Mine Car Company in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Known for revolutionary designs in mine conveyor systems andsupport equipment, the company grew and prospered, eventually relocating in Oak Hill, West Virginia in the early 1950′s.
In 1960, The Long Company was sold to Marmon-Herrington Company, a diversified heavy equipment manufacturer headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, merged with Cardox. John B. Long was appointed President and CEO of the new company named Long-Airdox. Marmon-Herrington (subsequently named as the Marmon Group) provided significant financial strength and aided Long-Airdox in it’sproduct development and company expansion efforts. By the late1960′s, Long-Airdox had become the largest manufacturer of underground mining equipment in the world.
Retiring from active duty with Long-Airdox in 1972, Mr. Long continued to contribute to it’s success as the head of a newly formed research and development company named Marmon Research. Over the 11years which followed, Marmon Research developed and refined a number of mining equipment products for Long-Airdox.
Many of the new products developed by Marmon Research were prototyped and produced by the Myers-Whaley Company of Knoxville, Tennessee. Myers-Whaley had been a specialty fabricator of underground mining equipment from the early 1900′s. During the1970′s, Mr. Long became a 1/3 owner of Myers- Whaley. In 1980, the headquarters of Marmon Research were moved into a separate portion of the Myers-Whaley facilities. In 1980, Mr. Long and his son, Armistead Long became involved in a coal mining venture in northeast Tennessee and southeast Kentucky. In the course of their mining and coal sales activities, a problem with proper coal sampling afforded them the opportunity to develop a solution which they felt could revolutionize the state-of-the-art in bulk materials sampling.
This solution, which would later result in the CLEAN SWEEP®sampling system, was deemed so promising that in January 1984, Mr.Long purchased certain assets of Marmon Research and formed John B. Long Co. (JBLCo) to facilitate its further development.
With a proven product line of MSHA approved battery powered personnel carriers and rock dusters developed under Marmon Research providing it’s basic income in the early years, JBLCo set out on an ambitious research and development program for the sampling products. Over $1,500,000 was invested in the first 4 years of this process with the resulting development of the CLEAN SWEEP®sampling system.
Starting from carefully selected initial installation sites, CLEANSWEEP® sampling systems were steadily developed and refined. In testimony to these efforts, the CLEAN SWEEP® sampling system holds a total of 24 patents in the United States and overseas to date with additional patents pending.
Today, there are currently over 500CLEANSWEEP® sampling equipment installations sampling 13 different materials in 13 different countries worldwide. CLEAN SWEEP®sampling equipment has become a market leader in the United States market for heavy bulk materials sampling and the emerging leader worldwide.