The Electric Quilt Company started as Dean Neumann, then a math professor at Bowling Green State University, married Penny McMorris, a corporate art curator and producer/host of several PBS series on quilting. Both loved quilts. And Dean had an idea he hoped might help quiltmakers develop their design ideas on-screen. So as Penny worked on a new television series, Dean spent spare time teaching himself programming, then developed the first Electric Quilt software program.
Dean’s program debuted on a segment of Penny’s “Great American Quilt” program (WBGU-TV) in 1991. Viewers from across the country called the television station. Penny and Dean collected their names. And The Electric Quilt Company was born.
Today, The Electric Quilt Company is the leading quilt design software company in the world. Since 1991, it has produced many software editions, published numerous books, and a whole line of downloadable block patterns called Boutique Blocks.
But equally important is education and customer support. The company offers hands-on EQ education in Perrysburg, Ohio at EQ Academy, each year. Electric Quilt places a special emphasis on offering customer service. Penny & Dean both agree, “We are immensely proud of the people behind our company: how hard they work, how smart they are, how eagerly they tackle new assignments, and as importantly, how kind they are to users who contact us for help.”