Who Owns Geist?

Geist has a history dating to 1948, when the company was founded in Lincoln, Nebraska. The company's early business focused on electrical products and power distribution equipment for commercial and industrial applications. Over subsequent decades, Geist evolved its product focus toward the data center and IT infrastructure market as the computing industry grew and the need for reliable, monitored power distribution in server environments became increasingly important.

The data center market's growth through the 1990s and 2000s, driven by the expansion of enterprise computing, internet infrastructure, and cloud computing, created growing demand for rack-level power distribution units that could deliver reliable power to servers and networking equipment while providing monitoring capabilities to track power consumption and environmental conditions.

Geist developed expertise in rack PDUs, which are the power strips installed in server racks that distribute power from the facility's electrical infrastructure to individual servers, switches, and other rack-mounted equipment. Unlike simple power strips, intelligent rack PDUs provide outlet-level power monitoring, remote switching capabilities, and environmental sensing, enabling data center operators to track power consumption at the individual device level and manage power remotely.

The company expanded its product portfolio to include environmental monitoring systems that track temperature, humidity, airflow, and other conditions within data center facilities. These monitoring capabilities are critical for data center operations, as temperature excursions can damage equipment and humidity variations can cause condensation or static electricity issues.

Geist built a reputation for technical quality and product innovation in the rack PDU and monitoring market, establishing customer relationships with data center operators, colocation providers, and enterprise IT organizations across North America and internationally.

In 2018, Vertiv acquired Geist as part of its strategy to expand its data center infrastructure portfolio. Vertiv, which had been spun off from Emerson Electric in 2016 as an independent company and taken public in 2020 through a SPAC merger, was building a comprehensive portfolio of data center power, cooling, and monitoring solutions. The Geist acquisition added rack PDU and environmental monitoring capabilities to Vertiv's existing power and cooling product lines.

Since the acquisition, Geist has continued to develop its product portfolio within Vertiv's broader data center infrastructure ecosystem. The rapid growth of hyperscale data centers and AI computing infrastructure from 2023 onward has created strong demand for data center power and monitoring solutions, benefiting both Vertiv and the Geist brand.