Crowley History

Sales. Service. Manufacturing. Support.

The late Jerome F. (Jerry) Crowley, Jr. started the privately-owned firm in 1980 under the name of J. F. Crowley, Inc.

Representing manufacturers in the photographic, graphic arts and micrographic industries, Jerry was successful in hardware and software sales but chaffed against the downtime his equipment spent on the display floor. He decided to put the machines to work when not in demonstration and in 1986, changed the firm name to Crowley Micrographics, with offerings of both hardware/software sales and document conversion services to commercial clients and to federal, state and local governments.

Within a few years, sons Christopher (Chris) and Patrick (Pat) Crowley joined the family business. As the company grew, it continued to diversify with a concentration in the areas of document conversion, reformatting and digital imaging services as a complement to the company’s strong position as a leading provider of document reformatting solutions (hardware/software).

To learn more about Crowley’s founder and history, we recommend the following blog posts:

• Cheers to 40 Years!
• Crowley Celebrates 35 Years
• On Father’s Day: Jerry Crowley
• Hard Head, Soft Heart: The Legacy of Chris Crowley

In October of 1996, the company’s ownership and leadership were assumed by Chris, filling the role of company president, and Pat as vice president. In 2017, eldest brother Kevin joined the executive management team as chief technology officer. Following Chris’ passing in 2018, Pat serves the company as president and Kevin as chief operating officer.

As client interest in digital technologies increased, Crowley Micrographics expanded product and service offerings to include digital scanning, including the hardware representation and in-house/service bureau use of premium digital and microfilm product lines.

Today the firm, now known as The Crowley Company, is the manufacturer and/or distributor of the following brands:

• Avision document scanners
• Crowley microfilm, microfiche, aperture card and book scanners
• CZUR book scanners
• InoTec document scanners
• Laserfiche® enterprise content management solutions
• Mekel Technology microfilm and microfiche scanners
• Qidenus V-shaped book scanners
• ROWE wide format scanners and folding systems
• Wicks and Wilson scanner manufacturing
• Zeutschel overhead, book, patron and graphic arts scan systems

Crowley Imaging is a digitization services bureau with hundreds of millions of images digitized and decades of experience in digital imaging and micrographics. The conversion services bureau clientele includes prominent individuals and private collections, archival institutions and associations, government and public agencies, corporations and a wide variety of noted academic, publishing and commercial organizations.

Categories of records converted from paper, bound books, microfiche, microfilm and photographic negatives include:

• Technical Documents: permits, reports, instrument readings, lab notebooks, and more
• Vital Records: motor vehicle records, patient records, medical records and others
• Land Records: deed books, tax records, etc.
• Court Records: marriage, adoption, cemetery, census, military, docket, case, police and other records
• Office Documents: invoices, payroll, personnel, minutes and more
• Historical & Publishing Records/Archives: newspapers, periodicals, special collections, etc.
• Engineering Records: maps, electrical, sewer, construction, schematics and others
• Photographs: slides, film strips, medium format negatives and reflective prints

A partial list of service bureau clients includes: Time-Life; The U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum; the National Archives; the Library of Congress; Harvard University, Cengage Learning, Lexus Nexus and many others that represent a full spectrum of imaging needs.

In addition to traditional scanning services, Crowley Imaging offers professional services such as collection assessment and project management for added customer value.

Over the past decade, Crowley’s technology and service offerings have continued to expand and now include the ownership of several leading hardware manufacturers.

In 2003, Mekel Technology, which introduced the first microfilm scanner to the world in 1989, became a part of the Crowley family of companies. Manufacturing the industry’s leading production roll film and microfiche scanners in San Dimas, California, the marriage of these two companies enabled The Crowley Company to sell direct to the market and to respond quickly to customer feedback with continuous improvement on existing and new scanners and systems. The high-end Mekel Technology scanners and its custom Quantum software suite are also mainstays in the Crowley service bureau.

In 2011, The Crowley Company acquired one-time competitor UK-based Wicks and Wilson Limited (WWL), adding to the line of Crowley-manufactured and distributed products and giving the firm a physical European presence. Known for a strong line of mid-volume microfilm, microfiche and aperture cards scanners and progressive engineering, the WWL hardware filled in the gap between the entry-level and high-volume scanners already manufactured or distributed by Crowley. Today, the Basingstoke, UK branch continues to be a Crowley center for international scanner manufacturing, sales and support.

In 2016, Crowley’s US and UK manufacturing teams worked together to develop the MACHAM 71, a 71 megapixel camera designed for machine vision and cultural heritage applications. After a successful run, manufacturing ceased in 2021 to allow the team to continue to focus on its 40-year core of cultural heritage imaging.

The Crowley Company continues to honor its analog roots and is one of the few remaining suppliers of micrographics equipment, owning and operating Houston Fearless (HF) Processors, which provides deep-tank film processing equipment for the microfilm and movie industry, and Extek Microsystems, which provides film duplicators for the micrographics industry including 16 mm and 35 mm silver halide duplicators and diazo film duplicators.

The hardware and software engineers in Crowley’s San Dimas (Ca.) and Basingstoke (UK) facilities join together to create a formidable research and development team. The company strives to continuously upgrade existing products to keep pace with changing technology and conceive new technology to suit the evolving digital needs of those with archives and records.

As a natural extension of the services above, The Crowley Company also provides technical support services, training and software maintenance support for installed systems throughout the world.

The Crowley Company’s mission is to promote the benefits of both image conversion and access and to offer customers a complete full-cycle solution to their digital imaging needs utilizing the different facets of the organization. With a greater capacity for decision-making, manufacturing and flexibility than the competition, we seek to provide a full range of conversion and reformatting solutions to all industries and institutions.

The Crowley Company’s Frederick, Maryland (USA) headquarters includes an 18,000 SF conversion bureau, technical support, sales and administrative offices. The company’s hardware manufacturing facilities are in San Dimas, California (USA) and Basingstoke, Hampshire (UK). In addition to Frederick, Crowley provides worldwide sales support from representative offices in Connecticut, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the United Kingdom. Additionally, the company has a strong network of reputable resellers across all continents.