GENICOM  From 1982 to 2003, GENICOM was a leading American manufacturer of computer printers, based in Chantilly, Virginia. In 1954, General Electric (GE) decided to decentralize the company into separate business units. After reorganizing the motors and controls groups, several products remained that did not fit into the new groups- these 'leftovers' were formed into the Specialty Control Department. A decision was made to build a new plant in Waynesboro, Virginia for Specialty Control with Dr. Louis T. Rader as General Manager. $3.5 million was used to purchase and build the plant on the site of the original 1927 Waynesboro airport. The seminal managers and engineers consisted of 145 families moved from Schenectady, New York and the initial workforce consisted of about 400 local residents were hired in the first year. The General Electric Specialty Control Plant was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. In 1982, GE sold the printer and relays groups and the company was formed as the GENICOM Corporation in 1983. The 1987 purchase of the printer business assets of Centronics added the 350 series dot matrix printers and the LineWriter series of band printers to their product line. During these years, Genicom leased offices in Calabasas, California. At this facility, development was being conducted on a 400 dot-per-inch monochrome laser printer. In the early 1990s, GENICOM's headquarters and corporate offices were moved from Waynesboro, VA to Chantilly, Virginia. In January 1995, the purchase of Printer System Corporation (PSC), a small developer of IBM interfaces in Gaithersburg, Maryland, was announced. PSC President Art Gallo joined GENICOM as a vice president. PSC became GENICOM's laser development group, and began producing GENICOM printers using Lexmark and Kentek engines. In 1996, the Texas Instruments printer business was purchased, giving GENICOM a line of airline-ticket, boarding-pass and baggage-tag printers. In August 1997, GENICOM purchased the printer division of Digital Equipment Corporation for $27 million, and produced printers under both the GENICOM and Digital logos. Compaq purchased Digital in February 1998, and new products were then branded with the Compaq logo. The relays group was sold to CII Technologies (since acquired by Tyco International) and soon moved to North Carolina. In 1997, a new repair facility was built in Louisville, Kentucky and operations were moved from Waynesboro.