The History of Cuny & Guerber

Emile E. Cuny & Walter M. Guerber founded Cuny & Guerber in 1924. The pair met in high school. Soon after they started Cuny & Guerber. Back in the 1920’s, Manhattan was not only a manufacturing center but it was also the location of the Central Purchasing Department for large corporations. In addition to electrical supplies, Cuny & Guerber, Inc. also sold washing machines and bicycles.

The World War II era proved to be a difficult time for Cuny & Guerber. It turns out that most of the Priority Books for War efforts were larger than manufacturers’ price books. Many of the sales during that time went to Shipyards and Defense Plants. Once the war had concluded, New Jersey had become a highly industrialized area. Many factories opened including paper mills, pharmaceutical companies, automobile assembly plants along with machine builders. Cuny & Guerber would eventually service those industries,

In 1940, the company decided to leave NYC and head to the suburbs of New Jersey, specifically, Jersey City. One of the branch offices was opened right across from the Hudson River on Van Winkle Ave. In 1943 however, the company outgrew the Van Winkle address and moved to Kennedy Blvd.

In the 1940’s, the next generation of Cuny & Guerber Inc., came on board. In 1948, David B. Matthews Sr., joined the team in outside sales along with Elmer J. Cuny in 1949. By this point, Cuny & Guerber was completely out of the appliance business.

In the 1980’s, the third generation of Cuny & Guerber joined the team. David “Chip” Matthews Jr., Steve Matthews and Raymond Cuny all came on board to work for the company.

In 1991, Cuny & Guerber relocated to a larger facility in Union City, New Jersey. C&G Automation Group was founded in 1999. Its purpose was to provide services for programming and system integration.

1999 was an important year for the company. The founding of C&G Automation Group was created to provide services for programming and system integration that neither manufacturers nor OEM had the resources or time to deal with. This group has two sides associated with it: the PLC, Sensors, Controls and HMIs and on the other side there is a motion control side with servomotors and servo drives, ac drives and inverter duty gear motors.