In the early 1970’s, Robert “Bob” Lemker was working at Texas Instruments and saw that there was a demand for a reliable commercially built mobile darkroom to process the x-ray film on location. In 1975, he started building darkrooms out of his garage and driving around the country to show various potential customers. The demand for these units quickly grew and in the first 5 years, he had to move into bigger facilities twice.
Bob’s son-in-law, Bill Harris, took over management of the business in 1997 and they decided to change the name to Lemker & Harris to reflect that. Between 1997 and 2007, Bill introduced new techniques to increase quality and efficiency. He also made a lasting impression on many of our customers that still refer to him as “The Gentle Giant” today.
Since 2007, Bill’s son, Robert Harris, has been managing the daily operations of the business. As the third generation to be involved with the business, there is a lot of pride in making sure that not only are you making your customers happy, but building something that lives up to your father’s and grandfather’s name.
Since 1975, we have had one goal in mind; we wanted to build a no compromises, high quality darkroom that we would be proud to put our family’s name on. That is still our goal and always will be.
A lot has changed over the years from our original units and while some of the changes won’t be as immediately obvious as others, we are always improving to provide our customers with the quality that has become synonymous with our family’s name.