70 Years of Voltage – Drama and Success

At Union Hotel Geiranger, Møre Trafo celebrated its colorful 70-year history since engineer and founder Oddvar Rieve Kristiansen in 1951 established the manufacturing company AS Møre Transformatorfabrikk at Aursnes. The first year with three employees and a turnover of 150,000 kroner.

Dream Realized

“The urge to create was always there, and I’m sure my father would have been an entrepreneur no matter what kind of society he grew up in. Shortly before he died in 1985, he said that we three boys had to choose our own paths based on our interests and abilities. He himself had been given the chance to do what he had always dreamed of, and he had never had a boring day,” says Dag Rieve Kristiansen, who during the anniversary talked about the history of Møre Trafo and his father, the founder Rieve Kristiansen, who passed away at only 65.

The Family Group

Dag became a doctor, Tor became a civil engineer and for many years the head of Møre Trafo, and the youngest, Jo, trained as an economist. Today the three of them make up the family-owned Rieve Group, which owns 66 percent of Møre Electric Group, the owner of Møre Trafo AS. For many years Jo has played a key role in Møre Trafo’s property company in Oslo, making sure the group has had more than one leg to stand on.

No plans for Sykkylven

Møre Trafo has for many years been a cornerstone company in Sykkylven, but founder Oddvar Rieve Kristiansen had no plans to settle in Sykkylven – until he met the woman who became the mother of their three boys, Borgny, née Sandal. She is in her 95th year and is well up to date on what is happening at the factory.

Met His Future Wife

“Dad came to Sykkylven first and foremost to help rebuild the power and transmission lines after the war, but then he met Mom and she wanted to live close to her own mother, and that’s how it turned out,” says Dag, adding that it was quite impractical to have a factory like that in Sykkylven, where all the raw materials had to be brought in from Oslo and the fully assembled products delivered back to the same place. It cost a lot of money even back then.

Cautious Start

Rieve Kristiansen started cautiously, repairing used electric motors and generators. Still, it didn’t take long before he moved into transformer production. His diploma thesis from the technical school was all about transformers.

Brought More People In

The number of employees gradually increased from three to 20 in 1960. In 1964, 30 employees moved into new production facilities at Ørsneset and revenue reached three million kroner. That same year, Oddvar Rieve Kristiansen decided it was time to bring in more owners, and NEBB joined as a shareholder with 20 percent, which increased to 35 percent in 1976. NEBB handled sales, and the Sykkylven company increased staffing and revenue almost every single year.

Transformer Substations

In 1977 the transformer boxes were to come down from the poles, and that’s how the company started producing transformer substations. Placed in ground-level kiosks, transformer maintenance became easier. Today Møre Trafo is Scandinavia’s largest manufacturer of distribution transformers and fully assembled substations.

Under Pressure

In 1987, Møre Trafo ended up in a dramatic squeeze after several mergers that came as a major surprise to Møre Trafo. The merger meant that all competitors in the Norwegian market joined forces with NEBB, which until then had been the entire sales organization for Møre Trafo. The unit became ABB, which then controlled all transformer production in Norway.

Sell or Scale Up?

“Møre Trafo was not a priority factor in this ‘great power game’. Back then, CEO Kjetil Buset feared that Møre Trafo would be squeezed out of the market and then forced to shut down,” says Dag about the situation that called for a big, crucial choice.

ABB pressured them to sell their shares and the factory. But the three brothers chose to resist. They were ready to fight, and to take out a 30 million loan to buy NEBB’s shareholding in Møre Trafo.

Proud and Happy

“We had long meetings with the management of Møre Trafo. Could we handle such a large loan? Were all the employees ready to fight? The answer was a clear yes. It was a tough decision, but today we are proud and happy about that decision,” says Dag Rieve Kristiansen about what became the start of Møre Trafo AS, where Tor started as Technical Manager and in 1995 took over as CEO.

Hit Back

The decision was at the time praised by both the county authority and the unions. The competitor’s prediction of a short lifespan for Møre Trafo turned out to be way off the mark. Today, Møre Trafo is the only Norwegian manufacturer of distribution transformers fully assembled in substations, has strong expertise in its workforce, and is very good at adapting its transformers to customer needs. Business is booming. Møre Trafo was also the first transformer manufacturer in Europe to be approved as an official NATO supplier.

Generous, Modest and Impractical

His son Dag describes Oddvar Rieve Kristiansen as generous and a bit modest, someone who mainly cared that others were doing well. He called himself a manager – never a director.

“In the early years he taught math, physics and electronics to make ends meet. He was very strong on theory, but extremely impractical. So he was quick to hire skilled ‘handy-men’,” says Dag Rieve Kristiansen about his father and the founder of the industrial success story in Sykkylven.