How it started
History
Kent dates back to the early 1900s when Abraham Kamler, an immigrant to the United States, began restoring bicycles in New York City. Kamler opened his own bike shop on the Lower East Side in 1909 and later moved to a larger location in Newark, New Jersey.
The current President's father started his own company called Philkam Cycle in 1947, supplying bikes and parts to stores all over the Eastern United States. Philkam Cycle changed its name in 1958 to Kent International. In 1979 it began manufacturing bicycles in Kearny, New Jersey, but closed its factory and moved manufacturing overseas in 1990. It returned manufacturing to the United States in 2014, building a facility in Clarendon County, South Carolina. In May 2025 Kent announced the closure of the Clarendon facility laying off 64 employees.
From Wikipedia’s article on Kent International, Inc, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2