[01/14/23]
Year 2022 came to a happy close and now we wish anyone reading our newsletter a Happy and
Prosperous 2023! Both LKO and L-KOPIA had a good year and increased business after Covid-
year 2020 and part of 2021.
In 2023, LKO Teknik AB will celebrate fifty (50!) years in business and L-KOPIA, Inc. will
celebrate 30 years in business. LKO was founded in Kungsbacka, Sweden in 1973 under a
different name, L-KOPIA AB. It was changed to LKO Teknik AB in 1993 to better describe
changes in our line of business. We went from aerial photography and photogrammetry to laser
based clearance systems and the new name reflected that change.
We kept the name by registering L-KOPIA, Inc. in Chicago, IL in 1993! We are two of the
oldest railroad contractors in Sweden and North America, and we attribute that to never
forgetting our small company’s values.
If you have the time, please check our 40 th anniversary PDF or YouTube (click on the links in the
heading on our website) to see more in detail how it all started. The 10 last years is a
continuation from the 20 th and 40 th ! Below will be a short highlight of what has happened since
our 2013 anniversary.
This picture from Sweetwater, TX in February 2003 is also present in our 2013 40/20 year anniversary presentation on YouTube and as PDF. The tree (3) partners of LKO Teknik AB are; Per Arne Pettersson, Mats Johansson and Lars Lundberg. Lars is also the President of L-KOPIA, Inc. in Indiana, USA. We are proud of sticking together for 30+ years and we are still partners of LKO Teknik AB!
Vice President Jeryl Lundberg was essential in starting L-KOPIA, Inc. on September 1st, 1993 in Chicago, Illinois. We moved to Schererville, IN the next year and L-KOPIA is still incorporated in Indiana.
Everything was the same from 2013 to 2017. Between 2017 and 2019 we did see a change in staffing as a lot of our colleges retired and were replaced with younger professionals. Both LKO and L-KOPIA started downsizing in 2018 and then came Covid in 2020. Two of L-KOPIA’s Class 1 customers decided to do clearance measuring “in house” without having a developed
system. We think it was a hasty decision and we understand both railroads hoped that point cloud based lidar systems could easily replace L-KOPIA. To this day, we still believe our cross sections-based X and Y + Mile or Km as Z (plus GPS) is the fastest and most accurate concept for clearance surveys and post processing.
Now to the good news, both LKO and L-KOPIA adapted quickly to the new situation, and we kept a lot of our old customers and added some new. L-KOPIA delivered a clearance laser system upgrade to Canada in March of 2022 (please see 03/07/22 newsletter) and we have been remarkably busy with clearance surveys in several East Coast States in 2021 and 2022.
LKO is presently working on an exciting order from Norway (plus post processing and consulting for old and new customers). The Norwegian upgrade is to adapt a 267 profiles per second hardware and adding new features in our software. This will be the fastest LKO / L- KOPIA Clearance Laser System to date and it means 35% higher measuring speed.
Please contact us for any questions on this first newsletter of 2023.
L-KOPIA and LKO wish all a healthy and prosperous 2023.