Baldor Electric Company, a member of the ABB Group, is a marketer, designer, and manufacturer of industrial electric motors, drivers, generator sets, and mechanical power transmission products.

Baldor Electric was founded in 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri, by Edwin C. Ballman and Emil Doerr. Ballman was an electric engineer with a passion for inventing. He had patented a centrifugal switch that improved a motor's performance and was certain that industry could be convinced of the merits of his new device. Ballman recruited Doerr, a plant supervisor at the St. Louis Electric Company where Ballman worked, to join him in his new venture, and the two men pooled their savings to lease space in a small shop across town. The pair hired a handful of workers and convinced a fellow St. Louis Electric employee, Oliver Baumann, to serve as office-manager/bookkeeper. The new company, named Baldor after the two founders, was an immediate success. The fully enclosed, low horsepower, repulsion induction motors made by Baldor were ordered by manufacturers of such industrial equipment as floor sanders and pumps which required high starting torque and an enclosed motor. After only one year of operation Baldor had outgrown the small leased shop, and the company purchased a factory in St. Louis which was to remain the company headquarters for the next 45 years.

Over the years, Baldor Electric has acquired several brands including the Dodge and Reliance Electric brands from Rockwell Automation. In 2011, ABB Ltd of Switzerland acquired Baldor Electric but the company still continues to operate under its name as a member of the ABB Group. Some of the products that Baldor Electric Company sells include Baldor*Reliance and ABB branded industrial electric motors in both IEC and NEMA configurations with range of 1/50th to 100,000 horsepower. The company also sells Baldor and ABB branded industrial drives and controls. Baldor*Dodge and Baldor*Maska are the brands used for the mechanical power transmission components that the company sells.