Rowan originally worked for Ajax Electrothermic Corporation of Trenton, New Jersey. He suggested improvements to the furnaces made by Ajax—shorter power leads and heavier copper bus bar—but the company did not implement his suggestions. Rowan left Ajax and decided to start his own company, Inductotherm Corp. Rowan designed and built his first induction furnace in 1953 in the garage of his home in Ewing Township, New Jersey with the help of his wife. Expanding from this first induction furnace Rowan created Inductotherm Industries Inc. which has since grown to include 80 subsidiaries throughout North America, South America, Europe, India, Asia and Australia. Today, there are more than 27,000 Inductotherm induction melting installations worldwide and they account for more than half of the melting systems in the world today.