Schweitzer Engineering Laboratory (SEL) Jobs and Profile

Our Role

SEL serves electric power utilities and industrial customers worldwide. Specifically, SEL designs and manufactures complete solutions for the protection, monitoring, control, automation, and metering of electric power systems. Our digital protective relays must respond to system faults, such as downed power lines caused by accidents or harsh weather, within milliseconds. SEL equipment serves hundreds of utilities and, in turn, millions of their customers by contributing to safer operations and by minimizing outages and damage caused by faults.

SEL introduced the first microprocessor-based protective relay in 1984, revolutionizing the power protection industry by offering fault-locating and other features for a fraction of the cost of earlier systems. Event reports in the relays allow engineers to analyze system faults. Innovative SEL communications technology enables customers to use the information in SEL and other substation products to monitor, control, and automate power system operation. SEL systems perform simple, inexpensive, and continuous monitoring of protection and automation information. Fault records and location, metering, status, and diagnostic equipment data are stored and reported. Information is used in substations, sent to control center applications, and made available for utility or third-party expert analysis. SEL also designs complete modular control houses for substations, provides engineering services, and serves the advanced training needs of industry professionals through SEL University. Courses emphasize the practical application of power system protection theory, concepts, and technology. 

History                                                                                                             

SEL was founded in Pullman, Washington in 1982 when Dr. Edmund O. Schweitzer III invented and marketed the first all-digital protective relay, reducing the cost and complexity of power protection and revolutionizing the industry. Schweitzer created the relay as a Ph.D. project while at Washington State University. The company shipped its first products to Otter Tail Power Company in Fergus Falls, Minnesota in 1984. In 1985, SEL built its first building and employed eleven people. The company continues to grow and today provides products and services in 117 countries and to the following industries.

SEL serves the electric power industry from its Pullman headquarters, where the company owns 130 acres, with 10 buildings on the site, including a new corporate headquarters, an event center and more than 200,000 square feet of manufacturing space. The company also has 35 additional domestic offices and 26 international locations

As a result, SEL offers unprecedented application assistance and customer support. The company employs more than 1,300 people worldwide. E. O. Schweitzer Manufacturing, a division of SEL in Lake Zurich, Illinois, is the electric power industry's market leader in fault indicator technology. SEL also owns a manufacturing facility in Apodaca, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, where it builds protection panels and control houses for world markets. SEL continues to develop its spectrum of products and activities to include modeling power systems, analyzing events, planning upgrades, providing equipment, designing and delivering turnkey systems, securing communications, and finding new solutions for complex problems in the electric power industry.

A Family of Inventors and Entrepreneurs

	Edmund O. Schweitzer Edmund O. Schweitzer began designing and manufacturing innovative products for the electric power industry in 1909, when he partnered with Nicholas J. Conrad to develop the first reliable high-voltage fuse. This development resulted in Schweitzer & Conrad, known today as S&C Electric Company (www.sandc.com), a supplier of high-voltage electrical equipment. Later product developments included fuse mountings, disconnect switches, lightning arresters, and metal-enclosed switchgear. Mr. Schweitzer also spent much of his career at Commonwealth Edison Company in the Chicago area.
	Edmund O. Schweitzer Jr. In 1949, after presenting ideas and prototypes to ComEd, Edmund O. Schweitzer Jr. founded E. O. Schweitzer Manufacturing Company, Inc. for the purpose of researching and designing line-powered fault indicators. During his lifetime, Mr. Schweitzer amassed nearly 100 patents involving fault indicators, voltage sensors, current transformers, and other devices for the electric power industry. Utilities around the world rely on these fault indicators to quickly restore system power after a fault occurs. In addition, EOS Manufacturing?s current transformers provide load information to automated switchgear, including transformers manufactured by S&C Electric Company.
	Edmund O. Schweitzer III Edmund O. Schweitzer III founded Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc. (SEL) in 1982 for the purpose of making electric power safer, more reliable, and more economical. Dr. Schweitzer invented algorithms that he then used to develop microprocessor-based protective relays. Today, utilities in more than 110 countries around the world use SEL?s protective relays, recloser controls, motor protection relays, communications processors, and meters. With more than 50 SEL Technical Service Centers around the world, SEL commits to providing the best customer service and sales support in the industry.