Our History Stands Tall

250+ similar units were manufactured and sold during the 1997-2003 period.

Our New Dynamic Split-A-Part Shredder Will Cut Your Maintenance Cost and Improve Your Bottomline. It’s Robust and Innovative.

Republic Welding Company was formed in 1911 as a Kentucky corporation and was located in downtown Louisville. George R. Sotsky and partner, James E. Steedly, Jr., purchased Republic Welding Company (RWC) of Louisville, KY in 1970.

For the next 32 years, Mr. Sotsky and Mr. Steedly lead the growth and development of RWC from an approximate 12,000 square foot facility with less than 20 employees to a aggressive company and subsidiary corporations of over 250 employees, with locations in Louisville, Lexington, and Prestonsburg, KY; Dallas, Houston, TX; Oklahoma City, OK; New Orleans, LA; Charlotte, NC; and Kansas City, KS.

RWC branded itself under the following names: Republic Diesel Truck & Machine, Republic Pneumatics, Republic Heavy Machine & Weld, Republic Industries (all in Kentucky), and Applied Energy Company (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kansas, and North Carolina).

During this period annual sales grew from $450,000 to over $40,000,000. Product offerings expanded from truck and diesel parts distribution, heavy-duty automotive machine work, to include engineering and manufacturing, heavy machining and welding on aggregate machinery, hydraulic cylinder manufacturing and remanufacturing, pneumatic conveying, air and liquid filtration, and fluid power parts distribution.

Special market focus included steel plants, forging mills machinery rebuild, aggregate machinery, coal mining and off-highway construction, track pad restoration for NASA, and the development of products used in the recycling industry.

All of RWC’s brands/companies (are in the process of or) were sold to employees and outside investors.

From 1997 until mid 2000, Republic Industries under Mr. Sotsky’s leadership manufactured Single Shaft Shredders through a private label agreement. Beginning in December of 2000, Republic Industries ended that agreement and began manufacturing machines under its own brand, Republic Machine.

Republic Industries was sold in 2004. However, Mr. Sotsky and Mr. Steedly retained ownership of the Republic Machine brand including all related intellectual property, grinder parts inventory, and several completed machines. Mr. Sotsky continued to engineer new innovations, to design improvements, and to service the 250+ units sold during the 1997-2003 period.

Today, Republic is proud offer highly innovated and engineered models including the unque Split-A-Part Single Shaft Shredder. These machine have set a new standard for performance, effieciency, and maintenance.

Innovative Solutions at Work