Who Owns Hach?

Hach was founded in 1947 by Clifford and Kathryn Hach in Ames, Iowa. Clifford was a chemist and inventor who had graduated from Iowa State University. Kathryn, his wife, handled business operations and marketing. The couple started the company with $15,000 that Clifford had earned from selling a patent for a carbon dioxide fire extinguishing method. They built a three-room cement block building on an acre of land in Ames.

In the first two years, the company sold chemical unknowns for quantitative analysis to university chemistry departments. Sales were minimal. The breakthrough came in 1949 when Clifford developed a simplified water hardness test kit based on EDTA titration. The Model 5-B Total Hardness Test Kit allowed anyone to measure water hardness by counting drops and watching a color change from red to blue. Kathryn came up with the idea of mailing free samples and simple instructions to municipal water treatment plants across the country. In one year, sales grew from $5,000 to $15,000.

Clifford's design philosophy was straightforward: products should "be used by anyone who can read." This principle guided Hach's product development for decades. The company repackaged complex laboratory procedures into simple, pre-measured reagent packets and portable test kits that could be used by water treatment plant operators without chemistry training.

In 1968, Hach went public, raising $1.7 million. The company was reincorporated in Delaware as Hach Chemical Co. The IPO capital funded a new chemical manufacturing plant in Ames. By the late 1960s, Hach was manufacturing over 100 different portable water test kits for applications including water and sewage treatment, cooling towers, wildlife conservation, and boiler water monitoring.

The Clean Water Act of 1977 drove significant demand for water testing products as municipalities and industrial facilities were required to meet new water quality standards. Hach's simplified testing methods became widely adopted. The company compiled its standard methods into the Hach Water Analysis Handbook, which became a reference text in the industry.

In 1978, Hach moved its instrument division and corporate headquarters to Loveland, Colorado. Hach Chemical Co. became Hach Company in 1980. Clifford Hach served as chairman and CEO, and Kathryn Hach became president and chief operating officer.

Clifford Hach died in 1990. Kathryn and her son Bruce took over the company and continued to expand internationally. By 1999, Hach had annual sales exceeding $150 million and had become a global leader in water purification technology. Kathryn Hach-Darrow was the sole CEO and led what was reportedly the largest woman-operated business in Colorado.

In 1999, the Hach family sold the company to Danaher Corporation for $355 million. Under Danaher's ownership, Hach was integrated into Danaher's Environmental and Applied Solutions segment. Danaher invested in expanding Hach's product line and global distribution network.

On September 30, 2023, Danaher completed the spinoff of its Environmental and Applied Solutions segment as Veralto Corporation, an independent publicly traded company (NYSE: VLTO). Hach became part of Veralto's Water Quality segment. Veralto reported full-year 2025 revenue of approximately $5.5 billion.