Roper Corp. was bought in 1988 by General Electric in a bidding war with
Whirlpool. (Ironic, since Whirlpool was once RCA-Whirlpool, and RCA was
once and is again GE.) After the dust settled, they sold the lawn and
garden equipment business to A.B. Electrolux of Sweden, makers of White-
Westinghouse, Frigidaire, Husqvarna, Poulan, Weed Eater and many other
brands. G.E. sold the Roper name rights to Whirlpool. They basically kept
the gas kitchen ranges and range patents, maybe the industrial pumps, and
looted the rest to pay the bill from the bidding war. (They paid over twice
the per share value at the start.)



exactly. i just didn't feel like relaying the entire story of what
we called rainbow manufacturing. because they came in so many colors
over the years. the story and product line actually go deeper than
that though.
i never had a problem getting foote parts. we had a great
distributer though. they had an enormous parts stock, and i was the
only one for about 30-40 miles that would work on them.
Chip