ECHO Incorporated was founded in 1972 in Northbrook IL as Kioritz Corporation of America. The company was initially an import ... er of high-performance 2-cycle engines and hand-held products manufactured by Kioritz Corporation of Japan. We were officially established under our present name, ECHO Incorporated, in 1978. Shortly after, we began to shift our focus more towards engineering and manufacturing and started initial production and assembly operations in Wheeling, IL. The first lawn care product produced was the curved shaft GT-200 grass trimmer. Soon after that, our product offering expanded to include chain saws, straight shaft grass trimmers, brush cutters, backpack and hand-held blowers, and hedge trimmers. With our continued growth, we established our present-day Americas’ corporate headquarters in Lake Zurich, IL, and completed construction of a 100,000 square foot manufacturing facility in 1985. Most recently in 2017, ECHO Incorporated expanded the corporate campus in Lake Zurich, and it now houses over 588,000 square feet of manufacturing, warehouse, and office facilities. The new, expanded facility allows us to manufacture over 200 different whole-good items and 17,000 aftermarket products. We also test all our engines for emissions compliance on-site before they are shipped out. Our goal is to provide you with ground-breaking, innovative products that offer real solutions. We will continue to work hard to balance high-quality performance with environmental demands and remain a pioneer in the industry. read more