It has sales offices in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, China, Brazil, Singapore, Korea, Japan, and Mexico. Local websites are also available for customers in France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, India, and Chile.[2] Omega does business with the United States Navy, NASA, and industrial corporations.[3]
History
The company was founded in 1962 by Betty Hollander at her kitchen table while she was raising four children.[4][5] Omega began as a thermocouple manufacturer but slowly transitioned to other types of instrumentation. As of 2014[update], Omega manufactures and sells devices that measure everything from temperature to pH.[6] In 2016, as the company moved their headquarters to Norwalk, Connecticut, President Joe Vorih publicly stated that Omega would be "moving from being a traditional industrial sensor company to a wireless technology company."[7]
Hacking
In 1996, Tim Lloyd, an 11-year employee of Omega and a network administrator within the company, was fired. Three weeks after he was fired,[8] he unleashed a software time bomb within Omega's computer systems, deleting the software that ran all of the company's manufacturing operations at its factory in Bridgeport, New Jersey.[3][9][10] Law enforcement was contacted by Omega executives during the second week of the incident and the U.S. Secret Service found suspicious activity early on, including deliberate data erasure and reformatting of critical files.[8] The company spent nearly $2million repairing the programs and lost nearly $10million (equivalent to $36million in 2023) in revenue, resulting in 80 employee layoffs, though Lloyd's lawyer stated that Omega's losses were far smaller.[3][9][10] Lloyd was convicted of computer sabotage and sentenced to 41 months in Federal prison.[10] The Lloyd hacking case is considered one of the largest employee sabotage cases in United States business history.[9] The case also aired in a Forensic Files episode "Hack Attack", episode 39 of season 8.
Sale to Spectris
In April 2011, Betty Hollander died, and the company was turned over to her husband Milton.[4] Later that year, he sold Omega Engineering–which had recorded revenue of $168million (equivalent to $229million in 2023) the prior year[11]–to British-based Spectris for $475million (equivalent to $635million in 2023).[12][11] Then in March 2017, Spectris was forced to recognize an impairment charge of £115million (equivalent to £141million in 2023) with relation to the past acquisition. This charge decreased goodwill and other intangible assets on Spectris' balance sheet. The charge also decreased its 2016 net income.[13]
Sale to Arcline
On 19 April 2022, Spectris announced the sale of Omega Engineering to US-based Arcline Investment Management for $525million (equivalent to $544million in 2023).[14] This was more than $100million above the net book value subsequent to the goodwill write-off that Spectris previously took.[15] Omega was merged into Arcline's Dwyer Group, renamed the DwyerOmega Group.
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