WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

Founder of the company Thor Johannsen, was born and raised in Denmark. He grew up with a family business (a builder of material handling equipment in Denmark), served an apprenticeship there, and studied mechanical engineering at the Danish Technical Academy.

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Thor brought his experience and knowledge to Canada with the dream of opportunity and entrepreneurship. In 1969, he began a proprietorship for doing repair work on crane boom sections and welding pre-casts on construction sites. Within a few years Thor was purchasing and renting prefabricated tower cranes while subsequently expanding into the design and manufacture of conveyors and bulk material handling systems for ship loading and the aggregate industry.

​THOR STEEL & WELDING

In 1973 Thor Steel and Welding Ltd. became incorporated and the manufacturing facility in Mississauga Ontario was opened. The company called themselves Thor Group with divisions Thor Cranes, Thor Conveyors and Thor Aggregate Equipment.

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With growing experience in the aggregate industry, Thor developed the first ever side-fold conveyor system in 1975. At the time, this was a much more cost-effective method of making conveyors transport-ready than the classic top fold designs being employed by other manufacturers. A patent for the side-fold conveyor was awarded in Canada (June 26, 1979) and the United States (July 10, 1979).

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Thor Johannsen's early success spurred the development of other rugged products such as the Viking series of screeners and many turnkey load-out operations that are still operating smoothly today, over 40 years later. Thor Steel Welding Ltd. was soon commissioned to manufacture and erect two 212ft tall 'hammerhead' tower cranes with 258ft long booms for Canada's Department of National Defense.

TELESCOPIC PORTABLE RADIAL CONVEYOR

With an innovative focus and a strong commitment to customer satisfaction, the company quickly became a leader in the production of bulk material handling solutions. As increasingly stringent requirements to supply in-spec aggregate material had emerged, Thor developed the first telescopic conveyor ever to be used in bulk material stockpile creation in 1992.

This had been the first true advancement in the battle against material segregation since the advent of the conveyor decades earlier, and has since revolutionized the way producers worldwide create aggregate stockpiles. Material could now be built in small concentric layers, thus ultimately reducing segregation. The demand for this product was so intense that the company decided to shift its primary focus towards developing Telescopic Conveyors, and have since been joined by other colleagues in the equipment manufacturing business.