Where It All Began

The Blair Companies were established in 1959 when organization founder Donald Devorris returned to Altoona from a career building power plants for GE to run Central Blair Electric. A few years earlier Don’s father, Mike, had purchased 50% ownership in a three-employee motor repair business. Don soon branched out, buying out his partner and founding Blair Electric Service Company, a small electrical contracting business. With the help of dedicated employees, the business grew, specializing in wiring large industrial jobs, such as coal prep facilities in Wyoming and bauxite mines in the West Indies.

In 1968, Don acquired Tel-Power, another small electrical contractor that had a few employees making signs in the back of their building. Not quite sure what to do with that end of the business, Don was introduced to Steve Pellegrine, the cousin of one of Blair Electric's office workers. Steve was a young sign maker who fabricated and painted signs in his garage, having apprenticed under experienced sign makers in Pennsylvania and Florida. Recognizing their common business goals, Steve and Don successfully founded Blair Sign Company in 1971.

Building a Solid Base

Soon after Blair Sign was established, Blair began designing, building, and installing signs for mall stores. One of the first national accounts was General Nutrition Centers. This experience paved a path to contracts with many major retailers and developers. Another major account had its start in 1966, when Steve built the sign for the very first Sheetz convenience store. Blair has built signs for every Sheetz facility since then. Between 1975 and 1980, Blair grew by 50% a year as shopping malls spread rapidly across the country.

Another early Blair account was Electronics Boutique, for which Blair built high-quality wood-encased cabinet signs. Because of Blair's reputation for delivering high-quality products on time, they were given the opportunity to manufacture additional display cases for Electronics Boutique. By the early 1980's, the company had spun off another division, Blair Fixtures & Millwork, which began producing millwork for a variety of Blair's sign accounts. Blair Lighting was established soon after to supply lighting fixtures to these same national accounts.

Strong, Steady Growth

At the end of 1989, Don's son Philip began working with Ron Ritchey, Blair’s long-time head of operations, to improve Blair Sign's production control and provide a foundation for future growth. After three years of continuous part-time effort, Philip left a career with Sony in New York City to work for Blair full-time.

From the mid 1980's to mid 1990's Blair Sign fabricated nearly 30,000 sets of Texaco letters, Blair's first major production account. Other big production programs followed, including Chrysler, Chevron Oil, several large POP sign runs for Budweiser, Coors and Fuji in the Japanese market, and over 100 enormous backlit billboards for Philip Morris. As the staff grew, Blair was able to handle even larger programs. More manufacturing capacity was added in 1994, then more sales people to keep the buildings full. By 1997, Blair Sign's operations were spread out over six locations, and Blair Fixtures had moved five times.

Finally, after 30 years of "making do" with a hodge-podge of buildings, in 1997 Blair bought the 150,000 square foot building on Kissell Avenue, and moved the entire sign operation under one roof for the first time in seventeen years. The consolidation into one building enabled them to focus attention on providing even better service to their customers. Accounts such as Kmart, Bank of America, Verizon Wireless, British Petroleum, and General Motors followed. Four years later, in 2001, Blair Fixtures and Blair Logistics moved into their own first-class facility on Industrial Park Drive in Altoona.

Continued Diversification

During this same period, Don continued to expand the overall Blair Companies organization. Larger and more diversified business were added to the group, including an interest in Cummings International, Piedmont Aviation, Building Concepts Unlimited, Coal Resource Partners, Mar-Par, Blair Telephone, Marriott Courtyard, TEAM Automotive, American Eagle Paper Products, WIN Capital, Chemcut, Delta Health Technologies, Juniata Fabrics, and Lee Food Service, Inc.

Unique properties were added to the group as well, including the Sylvan View Golf Club, Lakemont Amusement Park, Galactic Ice, and The Blair County Ballpark. A multitude of real estate projects were developed, including the 50-acre Elmwood residential development, 60-acre Strawberry Meadows shopping plaza and commercial site, the 250,000 sf M&T Bank Office Complex, the 210,000 sf Station Medical Center, the 350,000 sf SKF factory site, the 450,000 sf/160 acre Corning Asahi plant, and numerous warehouse facilities. Unique properties were added to the group as well, including the Sylvan View Golf Club, Lakemont Amusement Park, Galactic Ice, and the Blair County Ballpark. All told, over 4 million square feet of real estate has been brought into the portfolio. Over 700 acres have been or are under development, along with 2500 acres with timber and waste-coal fields.

Employees and Partners

Having had great success with many early business partners, Blair continues to develop real estate and launch businesses with dozens of first-class business partners from throughout Pennsylvania and beyond.

Through all of the changes and moves, more than three dozen of the people that originally built Blair Electric in the 1960's, Blair Sign in the 1970's, and Blair Fixtures in the 1980's are still with the company. Many of the first employees worked at Blair until they retired, and quite a few of them still have family working for the company today.