MEET YOUR NEIGHBOR
Seth Ward III PRESIDENT, POM INC.
HOW DID YOUR BUSINESS GET ITS START?
There was actually a fellow named Carl Magee who invented the parking meter in Oklahoma City in 1935, and his company was the predecessor of POM. ... Eventually [the company] was sold to Rockwell International. Rockwell moved it to Russellville in 1965 in this same building. Then a group of employees and investors purchased it from Rockwell in 1976, and that’s when it became POM Inc., and then in 1981, my dad bought the company from them.
HOW MANY COMPANIES MAKE PARKING METERS IN THE U.S.?
Only two companies have ever manufactured parking meters in America: POM Inc. and Duncan Industries. Both companies have Arkansas connections. POM has been headquartered in Russellville since 1965, and Duncan was in Harrison until the early 2000s, when it moved production outside the U.S.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PART OF YOUR JOB?
The creation aspect. I won’t say we invented it — other people had them before us —but we invented our own credit-card accepting single-space parking meter, and it will handle one, two, three or four spaces, and that’s something I’ve overseen from inception to where it is now.
WHAT PLACES USE YOUR PARKING METERS?
We’ve sold meters in 45 countries . ... Right now, our biggest international customer is probably Ecuador . ... They didn’t have any parking meters until POM came along, so that’s a pretty exciting opportunity. In America, we’ve probably sold them in every state except North Dakota, where parking meters are illegal.
WHAT’S SOMETHING PEOPLE MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS?
Our circuit boards are designed by us and manufactured by several Arkansas vendors. Almost everything else in our meters is made at our plant in Russellville. ... There are lots of companies who claim that their products are “Made in America,” but they are really just assembling foreignmade parts into a final product. At POM, we start with raw materials and end up with parking meters.
WHY IS RUSSELLVILLE A GOOD PLACE FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
POM was here when we bought the company, and I don’t think we could do it as well anywhere else. The people of the River Valley have just been awesome as employees. We have some amazingly skilled people who work here. A lot of them have worked here even longer than my family’s owned the place.