The device allows users to send and receive text messages and issue an SOS in locations where cell service isn’t available. Garmin indicated that it is particularly interested in getting inReach, DeLorme’s handheld satellite communications device, which was launched in 2011. The company started transitioning to electronic maps in 1985 with CD-ROM versions of its atlases and began producing GPS devices in 1995.ĭeLorme’s family controls the company board, but he hasn’t been involved in day-to-day operations for about five years, Stiver said. The company was started by David DeLorme, who published his first Maine Atlas & and Gazetter – a collection of detailed, magazine-sized paper maps of the state – in 1976. She said employees hired before 2015 have a profit-sharing deal, but Stiver said the company isn’t sure if they will share in the profits of the sale.

The DeLorme family, which still owns all of the stock in the company, approved the deal with Garmin, Stiver said, because it will maintain the company’s presence in Maine. Stiver also said there were special provisions made in the deal to ensure that Eartha, the giant rotating globe in the Yarmouth building’s lobby, would remain open to public tours. “It’s just kind of sad becaues it’s a Maine institution,” she said when she stopped by to pick up an atlas of Arizona she will give to her cousin on an upcoming trip. Kay Siedler of Oakland, also said she will miss the store. “I love this place,” said Cary, who noted that he has four framed DeLorme map hanging in his house. Walter Cary of Lewiston, who was visiting the store Thursday morning to pick up maps for an upcoming trip to the Allagash, said he was sad to learn the store will close. Stiver said only “a handful” of employees work in the store. Those employees will lose their jobs, but most of the remaining employees will be retained. The deal with Garmin, she said, does not include the DeLorme Map Store, inside the company’s Yarmouth headquarters.

Kim Stiver, DeLorme’s vice president of marketing, said DeLorme has 92 full-time employees in Yarmouth. Garmin said that it will retain most of DeLorme’s employees and its headquarters in Yarmouth, with the site operating as a research and development facility focused on two-way satellite communications devices and new technologies. Terms of the deal were not disclosed and the transaction is expected to be completed within 30 to 60 days, Garmin said. Murphy Staff Writer | 20ĭeLorme, the Yarmouth-based maker of handheld satellite communications devices, is being purchased by Garmin, a Swiss-based manafacturer of GPS navigation and wireless devices. Yarmouth-based mapmaker DeLorme sold to Garminīy Edward D.

Delorme street atlas 2015 for sale