Founded in 1971, MEI was born of the dreams and aspirations of John Romnes. What started as a one-man operation in a rented farmhouse has now grown to a multi-million dollar company with more than 300 employees.

Before starting MEI, John had nine-and-a-half years of industry experience. He was the only full-time employee of MEI for the first seven months. In the early ‘70s, with two full-time employees, including John himself and a part-time employee, John began to expand his business splitting MEI time between service, repair, modernizing and installing elevators. MEI built and installed its first freight elevator in 1973 and its first passenger elevator in 1975 in Mankato; both were new elevators, built from scratch.

From 1971 – 1981, MEI’s service base grew to 110 service contracts, consisting of approximately 330 elevators serviced by two technicians. “During the first decade of MEI, I feel we were blessed in many ways and experienced God’s favor, which helped lay the groundwork for our future success,” John said.

MEI experienced rapid growth in the ‘80s, adding more employees, building more elevators, acquiring more service contracts and constructing its first factory building. From 10 employees in 1981 the company grew to employing 59 workers by 1990.