Illinois Review

Masters in Manufacturing: Perseverance in the face of challenge spells success

HM Manufacturing’s Nicole Wolter

WAUCONDA - Nicole Wolter has a huge challenge facing her and HM Manufacturing - the business she and her father Ken Wolter, now own as partners.

That current test is similar to ones business owners face every day: how to fulfill a customer’s latest demands.

Nicole Wolter is finding a way to nearly double the speed and efficiency of the multi-national company’s food processing machines in order to meet their customer demands.

It’s a good challenge, Wolter says. One she plans to meet.

Manufacturer, State Senator and possible Ambassador to Kenya: Kyle McCarter

SPRINGFIELD - At the Illinois State Capitol, Senator Kyle McCarter is the only elected official that is also a manufacturer – one that knows from personal experience how state laws and regulations can positively (or negatively) affect small businesses. 

In downstate Lebanon, McCarter is known as the founder and president of Custom Product Innovations and Custom Coating Innovations, two manufacturing companies that employ 25 local residents.

Thousands of miles away in East African Kenya, McCarter and his wife Victoria are revered as the directors and key benefactors of a medical clinic, an elementary school and an orphanage.

And if that weren't enough, McCarter's name is now being circulated for consideration to be the United States' ambassador to Kenya.

On her way to making the world a better place: Amy Arend of United Scrap Metal

CICERO – When Amy Arend started at United Scrap Metal in Cicero after graduating from the University of Missouri, she had no idea what an exceptionally good fit her new job in manufacturing would be for her.

“United Scrap was everything I was looking for – a career in sales, selling something I am passionate about, that works to make the world a better place,” the 25- year-old told TMA News Bulletin.

On the surface, that may sound like a typical sales pitch, but under Amy’s heartfelt comments lurk contradictions that make her long term goals all the more stunning.

Masters of Manufacturing: 98 years & 4 Generations: Atlas Tool & Die Works

LYONS, IL - Atlas Tool Works will soon be celebrating its 100-year anniversary, and the fourth generation of Mottls is focused on the company’s future.

Since its founding in 1918, Atlas Tool Works – like all longtime family-owned companies - has been through good and bad times.

But the Lyons-based precision manufacturing company that employs more than 70 is thriving in 2016 with high hopes for a second century.

“Last year our sales grew by 20 percent, and this year we’re on track to surpass 15 percent growth,” President Dan Mottl’s son Zach said.

The Family Business: 75 Years and Three Generations at Wiegel Tool Works

WOOD DALE - Brothers Aaron and Ryan Wiegel and their sister Erica make up the third generation of the family that has owned Wiegel Tool Works in Wood Dale, Illinois for 75 years.

Wiegel Tool Works is a precision stamper that specializes in electrical automotive tight tolerance terminals, complex lead frames and bus bars. Aaron and Ryan focus on Wiegel Tool Works, while their sister Erica presides as sole owner over her 2015 acquisition, Aro Metal Stamping in Roselle.

Aaron, the oldest, graduated from Northern Illinois University with a degree in manufacturing engineering in 2000, and immediately thereafter started working fulltime in the family business. Like most raised in a family business, Aaron and his siblings spent considerable time where their dad worked.

“We liked to spend time there – but as we grew older, Dad taught us the value of work,” Aaron said. “Once I asked him for $20 to go out with some friends. He handed it over, and then said next time I needed $20, I would have to earn it.”

Masters in Manufacturing: CNC Programming Instructor Jack Krikorian

CNC Programming Instructor Jack Krikorian - photo by Rob Hart

SCHAUMBURG - “Now that you’re graduating, make sure that you never stop learning. Keep that same drive you showed in class. You truly have a bright future ahead of you,” Technology & Manufacturing Association's instructor Jack Krikorian said, just before handing certificates to graduates of TMA’s 2016 CNC Programming course in May.

The 2016 CNC Programming graduates Krikorian was encouraging were the latest in a line of machinists, mold makers and tool & die makers in whose training he has played a crucial part.

From salesman to plastics company founder: Alex Curtiss of Engineered Plastics Products

ELK GROVE VILLAGE – Alex Curtiss launched Engineered Plastic Products in 1976 after being a manufacturing sales rep for several years. “At that time, almost all plastics were being done by metal machining companies. My partners and I represented primarily plastic companies,” Curtiss said.

Not one of the companies he worked with at the time focused solely on plastics machining. That glaring industrial omission presented him with an opportunity to fill the void – something for which smart entrepreneurial-types are always looking.

Masters of Manufacturing: Superior Joining Technologies’ Teresa Beach-Shelow

For Superior Joining Technologies' Teresa Beach-Shelow, it’s all about manufacturing’s future

MACHESNEY PARK – Teresa Beach-Shelow was busy volunteering with two daughters’ activities and developing a career in banking when her husband Thom launched a new business in their garage.

That year – 1992 – spelled dramatic change for the whole family.

Thom’s knowledge of precision welding and laser technology matched up with Teresa’s skills in business and finance, Superior Joining Technologies took off, and the Shelows haven’t looked back.

Masters in Manufacturing: Increasing Sales, Decreasing Costs - Colin Cosgrove of Laystrom Manufacturing

CHICAGO – The first thing Laystrom Manufacturing Company’s new president and CEO sees when he comes into his office every morning is a whiteboard on the wall. On that whiteboard are two arrows – one green, pointing up, and one red, pointing down.

The green arrow reminds Colin Cosgrove that it’s his job to increase sales and the red arrow reminds him to decrease costs.

“That about sums up my job at Laystrom Manufacturing,” the 41-year-old said when TMA visited his office.

Masters of Manufacturing: Once a floor sweeper, now a movie sword maker

Justin Murlowski of Chicago Waterjets, INC

ELK GROVE VILLAGE - In the Age of Extinction, the fourth in the popular Transformer film series, one of Optimus Prime’s two swords is destroyed by Decepticon Galvatron’s chest grinder.

Optimus then acquires a knightly longsword as his weapon of choice – one among six other swords featured in the 2014 hit. It originated at Elk Grove Village’s Chicago Waterjet, INC.

“We got a call from a person associated with the film’s production, needing us to cut a sword they would use CGI with,” Justin Murlowski, Chicago Waterjet’s shop foreman, told TMA during a recent visit.

Peoria hit with more Caterpillar layoffs

PEORIA - When big manufacturers announces layoffs, dominoes begin to fall, and not only does the big company suffer, so do smaller manufacturers that repair machine parts and contract for specialty jobs.

Peoria's Caterpillar announced last fall orders in the energy and mining markets were slowing that would force the elimination of 10,000 jobs. Since September, Caterpillar has eliminated 2300 workers in the Peoria area, and plans to cut 2700 more. 

In addition, Crain's reports, as many as 20 manufacturing facilities downstream could be hit by cuts and closures over the next three years, affecting another 5,000 workers.

Masters in Manufacturing: Doug Sosnowski of Rockford's Spare Part Solutions

ROCKFORD – Doug Sosnowski started Spare Part Solutions twelve years ago, and today his Rockford-based business has 22 team members. Among other machinery needs, Spare Part Solutions specializes in replacement parts for printing equipment. 

Spare Part Solutions started providing printing machine parts in 2003 from a 3000 square foot shop. Two years later, they moved into a 7000 square foot building, took over another printing parts business in Chicago and moved into another 3000 square foot facility while starting to make parts for Tier 1 and Tier 2 government suppliers. 

Masters in Manufacturing: Dave Haimbaugh, CEO of Induction Heat Treating

CRYSTAL LAKE - When you drive safely from one place to another without problems with your car’s wheels, you’ve personally experienced the value of induction heat treating – whether you know it or not.

“Every wheel on every car in the world has induction-hardened bearing races,” Dave Haimbaugh, CEO of Induction Heat Treating Corporation told TMA during recent visit. “Every wheel hub that the wheel is attached to, those bearing races are induction-hardened.”

That’s the kind of work Haimbaugh and the near 60 members of the IHT team do everyday inside the walls of their 35,000 square foot building in Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Masters in Manufacturing: Wes Gardocki, CEO of Termax in Lake Zurich

LAKE ZURICH – When Wes Gardocki joined Termax Corporation in 2001, he was hired on as a quality manager. Soon after, he moved into production, and became production manager. He then moved up to director of operations, then vice-president, and as of January 2015, he is now the company’s president. 

The company Gardocki presides over has just expanded into a 120,000 square foot building in Lake Zurich, Illinois. Termax employs 420 in its expanding array of facilities from Chicago’s far northern suburban manufacturing plant to warehouses in Korea, China, Canada and Mexico.

Masters of Manufacturing: Erica Wiegel: Aro Metals Millennial CEO

Aro Metal Stamping CEO Erica Wiegel

ROSELLE - After growing up spending every summer working at her family’s business, Erica Wiegel took a bold step this past July when she bought Aro Metal Stamping Company, Inc. in Roselle, Illinois.

The 35-year-old could be the poster child of the Millennial Generation. She exudes the typical Millennial’s core values of confidence, competition, optimism, realism and street smarts.

Masters of Manufacturing: Jordyn Anderson of Calumet Abrasives

Another in Illinois Review's ongoing series of hardworking job creators in the field of manufacturing ...

HAMMOND IN - Statistics say that family businesses commonly face tough survival odds when the third generation moves into leadership. About 40 percent of U.S. family-owned businesses become second-generation companies, but only 13 out of 100 survive the third generation.

Those numbers are in the back of Jordyn Anderson's mind these days, as she carefully juggles serving as vice-president of Calumet Abrasives with being a wife and mother of five young children. 

Masters of Manufacturing: Stacey Bales, President of Downers Grove’s Bales USA

Stacey Bales is the 32-year-old President and CEO of Downers Grove's Bales USA

DOWNERS GROVE - Manufacturers are a “bunch of MacGyvers” to Stacey Bales, president of Bales Metal Surface Solutions.  Manufacturers make up a unique group of creative, ingenious and determined folks with whom she loves working and being associated. 

“Not only is it great to have people to work with every day like that, but it’s nice to have a network of friends that are business owners and working with family,” she said.

Every year for the past five, Bales work of polishing and finishing has grown 20 percent - altogether, an amazing 100 percent.  Their trademarked specialties of Nibore, Nicklon and Diamond EN coatings are among several others available for metal components.

But 2009 was a difficult year for most manufacturers - that’s no secret. For Bales, 2009 will be remembered as one of its most wrenching. 

Starkehaus: When it comes to politics, ugly is as ugly does

By Irene F. Starkehaus -

Rumors are floating that a deal has been struck somewhere behind the scenes with regard to the Republican presidential debates. It's being said that the reason Carly Fiorina got placed on the A list for the CNN event is because she's a ringer who has been brought in to mow down Donald Trump. Apparently now that Donald Trump has called Carly ugly, she's just the person to kneecap him.

I heard of this possibility…that Carly is the evening's rented pit bull (talk about your affirmative action hire)… and paused to consider the reality of what this says about the debate process and about leading GOP contenders who are asphyxiating from the pure adrenalin of Donald Trump's poll numbers.

I don't know what the GOP is thinking by propagating such unattractive gossip, but bringing in a girl to beat up the so-called playground bully is not the narrative of political aptitude that I would be pushing on behalf any would-be nominee.

Masters of Manufacturing: Brennan Equipment & Manufacturing of University Park, IL

Another in Illinois Review's ongoing series about  Illinois-based manufacturers -

UNIVERSITY PARK, IL - Every manufacturing company has to have tables, workbenches, carts, hand trucks and storage cabinets to create products and keep the shops organized. They are so rudimentary to manufacturing, that these items are often overlooked and taken for granted.

But the leadership team at Brennan Equipment and Manufacturing Company is very aware of all of those hardy utility items because they and almost 80 others design and make Little Giant products in Chicago's south suburbs.

Terry Thomason, the company's General Manager, Pat Bowden, Engineering Manager of Brennan Equipment, Jim Reschke, Sales and Marketing Manager, and E-Marketing specialist Ashley Benjamin insist that each team member is crucial to the company's continued success.

Masters of Manufacturing: Rich Andre of Bridgeview's Van Norman Molding

BRIDGEVIEW, IL - Eighty years ago, an engineer that produced parts, molds and equipment for an electrical company took up a challenge from his bosses to start a new business that would supply plastic parts so the company could free up plant space.

Rich Andre's grandfather, Gus Andre, was the vice-president of engineering at the Indiana electrical company that wanted to expand. While Andre's grandfather didn't jump into Van Norman Molding right away, within the first year, he had become a part of Van Norman Molding's three-man ownership. 

"It was the Depression years and things were tough, especially to start a new company," Andre said.

But over the next 64 years, the Andre Family gained full ownership. In 1998, Rich's father Dick Andre, his brother Bob and he bought out Van Norman Molding's remaining partners, allowing Rich and his brother to own the privately-held company headquartered in Chicago's southwest suburban Bridgeview.

Masters of Manufacturing: Steve & Mario Pagliuzza of Dial Tool Industries, Inc.

ADDISON, IL - When Steve Pagliuzza started working for his dad in the early 1960s, Dial Tool Industries' toolmakers wore shirt and ties to work each day. 

"It was very different from the way things are today," Steve recalled. "And one of my first jobs was to take a cart around the shop floor and deliver coffee to the guys. It was expected."

Steve says he remembers that he always wanted to work for the family business.

"When I was 10 years old, I could read blueprints. I always wanted to be here. Even when I went to college, where I studied business and math, I still always wanted to work here," he said.  

But Steve's four years younger brother Mario had other career ideas in mind.

Masters of Manufacturing: Scott Riddell, President & Owner Newko Group

Newko Group's Scott Riddell and Gabriel Casanas 

PALATINE, IL - Newko Group President Scott Riddell's story of leading a manufacturing company for thirty years is one filled with determination, inspiration and flavored with some reservation.

Scott's stepfather Harold Newberg and his partner Gene Koch took a segment of each others' last names in 1958 to name their new company "Newko Tool." The two partners eventually expanded their work from die casting to tool making and metal pressing for big north suburban companies like Motorola and Northup.

By the time Scott was old enough to help at Newko Tool, Chicago area manufacturers were in the midst of company-making and -breaking decisions as they watched their work move to China and Mexico. 

He had completed a degree at Winona College in business administration, and agreed to return to help the family business through a rough patch during the late 1980s manufacturing downturn.

"Thirty years later, and I'm still here," Riddell, 51, said. "I came back from college, put an apron on and started tool and die work in the shop."

Masters of Manufacturing: Stephen Walters, CEO of Progressive Coating

CHICAGO - Progressive Coating is a Chicago company that CEO Stephen Walters bought eight years ago. Despite a difficult economy, Walters' business grew 35 percent in each of the last four years. 

Having just added the company's fourth production line, Walters has high hopes for expanding and turning Progressive Coating into a formidable enterprise.

Walters, now a 41 year old husband and father of two boys, graduated from college in 1997 with a degree in fine arts and painting. When he finished school, he says the family business wasn't in his career plans.

"I had no interest in the coating business, but my dad kept asking me to join him following college. After spending time at the business, I found I really enjoyed the work," he said.

Masters of Manufacturing: Tim Berger of Sureway Tool & Engineering

FRANKLIN PARK, IL - Next time you run to the mall to pick up a new shirt or a birthday toy for the kids, take a quick glance at the shelving and displays that attract you as a shopper. Those shelves, that display, that unique presentation may be courtesy of Sureway Tool in Franklin Park, Illinois.

From metal pressing to assembly, Sureway Tool does work for "point of purchase" retail display companies.

Tim Berger, Director of Operations, has the job of overseeing Sureway's floor activity.

"We're a custom metal fabricator for the display industry, but we're continuing to pursue manufacturing to draw in other clients for more steady work," Berger said.  

Sureway just bought a new 64,000 foot display and assembly fulfillment center in nearby Melrose Park.

When Berger started with Sureway three years ago, the company was at $12 million annually. Last year, they reached $24 million and their goal for 2015 is $30 million.

Berger says there's a boom in manufacturing in the Chicago area.

Masters of Manufacturing: Eric Treiber of Chicago White Metal Casting, Inc.

BENSENVILLE, IL - Although Eric Treiber joined Chicago White Metal Casting, Inc. (CWM) in 1990, and was appointed President/CEO in 2010, he fondly remembers visiting the company with his father when he and his sister Kim were only five and seven years old respectively.

"When my sister and I were children, my father would take us to CWM on Saturday mornings, probably to give our mother a break," Treiber said. "We'd play in his office while he worked, and then he would take us by the hands and walk us through the manufacturing areas."

In high school, Treiber worked at the family business during summer vacations, mostly in the shipping department, but also doing a considerable amount of heavy duty cleaning. That time at CWM gave him the opportunity to meet great people, he says, some of whom are still on CWM's team today.

"Our vice president of manufacturing started when he was 16 years old, and he's been working here 46 years," Treiber said.

After high school, Treiber went to college at the University of Illinois at Champaign, and after graduating in 1985, headed to the East Coast for a job in manufacturing, but ended up starting a restaurant on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.

Fernando Ortiz, Jr. elected chairman of Technology & Manufacturing Assoc.

SCHAUMBURG, IL - The Technology & Manufacturing Association of Illinois (TMA) has announced the election of Fernando Ortiz, Jr. as Chairman of the Board for 2015. Ortiz is Vice President and General Manager of Roberts Swiss Inc., a company headquartered in Itasca specializing in precision Swiss Machined Parts for the medical, dental, hydraulics, aerospace, military and other industries.

Ortiz, who worked his way up from the shop floor to the executive offices at Roberts Swiss, told an audience of several hundred Illinois manufacturers last Saturday the he was thankful to TMA "for the programs, services and training" that helped him get to where he is today. “I am humbled by the trust given to me by my peers to chair this great organization,” he added.

Masters of Manufacturing: Gerhard Haigis of Gerhard Designing & Manufacturing

The next in Illinois Review's series profiling Illinois manufacturers

By Fran Eaton - 

When Gerhard Haigis was eight years old, he learned how to dodge bullets firing down on his boyhood town in Germany.

It was 1945, and the older boys taught Gerhard to lie in the ditch on same side as the direction from which the British fighters were attacking. It was a part of surviving in the heart of a world war. “We learned how to survive in very tough times,” Haigis said. “We were hungry much of the time. But I learned very early in life that education is very important.”

Haigis said he clearly remembers entering his school building where, above the door in German were the words, “Knowledge is power.”

The founder and CEO of Gerhard Designing & Manufacturing went on to get a liberal arts high school education in Germany, but immediately went into learning tool making. At age 21, he came to America as a tool master craftsman and sought work in the Chicago area. He decided to start his own business.

“I had no money to start with, but I knew I could do the job I saw others doing,” he said. “I went to six banks, and couldn’t raise a cent. A friend loaned me some money, which I paid back, and started the company.”

Masters of Manufacturing: Victoria Van Bortel and Al Kasper of Ideal Carbide Die

Victoria Van Bortel and Al Kaspar of Ideal Carbide Die Company

By Fran Eaton - 

Victoria Van Bortel and Al Kasper of Ideal Carbide Die in Bolingbrook, function as a team at the 61 year old company.

Ideal Carbide, which was started in 1953, hired Victoria’s father, Jay Hartz, in 1973. With a background as a metallurgical engineer and an MBA from the University of Chicago, he was hired with an option to obtain the company when the founder retired. When Hartz assumed the role of company president in the 1980s, he focused on growing the business.

“My father sacrificed a lot for his work. When he did something, he really did it,” Victoria said.

Ideal’s excellent reputation that Hartz worked so hard to build continues as Hartz has retired and has passed on to Victoria and Al the company’s leadership.

Victoria and Al each have a unique background that works together well for the company’s customers and employees. Victoria has an accounting and business background, and Al’s expertise is in designing and tool-making.

An Interview with Diagrind Inc.'s President, Mike Sommer

By Fran Eaton - 

The 41 year old president of Diagrind Inc. in Orland Park is a man of contrasts.

On one hand, he’s an energetic runner, cyclist, boater and snowboarder, and on the other hand he takes great pride working on his company’s wood-framed visual grinder that was made in the 1940s.

Now in the third generation of tool making, Mike Sommer is proudly carrying on his family’s heritage, but is focused on taking Diagrind’s brand and products into the future.

“We provide the tools that finish dies and molds that other companies make,” Sommer said.

Diagrind Inc. specializes in small tools ranging from the largest at 3 inches, down to .0015 of an inch. Because of the size and the elements they use to manufacture the tools, most of Diagrind’s work is done by hand – the same way it has been done for decades.

In the 1960s, Ideal Carbide Die Company founder Ingolf Snevu developed Diagrind’s bonding system, joining the rigidity and precision of carbide with the toughness of diamond. Sommer’s grandfather and father bought Snevu’s bonding recipe in 1975 and started Diagrind.

Masters of Manufacturing: Oak Lawn's Meyer Tool reaches across continents and into space

Illinois manufacturers and their CEOs are the lifeblood of the state's economic health. Illinois Review's ongoing series on manufacturing leaders continues with a focus on Meyer Tool's Eileen Cunningham.

OAK LAWN – Driving northeast along Southwest Highway in Oak Lawn, a sizeable, yet non-assuming brick building with the sign “Meyer Tool” would normally not be noticeable. 

But behind the doors underneath Meyer Tool’s sign is a surprising array of projects that is changing the world as we know it – and it’s very likely most the people of Oak Lawn have no idea what’s inside.

In 1969, the company’s founder Frank Meyer, a machinist, was laid off from Argonne National Laboratory and started his own machine company in his southside garage.  He worked at and ran Meyer Tool until his death in 2006.

In the early 1990s, just as she was about to graduate from business school, Meyer Tool’s current CEO Eileen Cunningham joined her father’s company with the assignment of expanding and updating its accounting system.

“As time went by, I became more responsible for things and became more and more a part of the decision-making team here at Meyer Tool,” she said. “Then when it was time to for him to set up a succession plan, and he asked me if I would be interested in being in the plan. “

Illinois Job Creators: Do-Rite Die & Engineering's Alan Szymanski

New Illinois Review series: Illinois Job Creators

Alan Szymanski, President of Do-Rite Die & Engineering in South Chicago Heights

By Fran Eaton - 

SOUTH CHICAGO HEIGHTS, IL – Alan Szymanski was in diapers when his dad and a partner started Do-Rite Die & Engineering in south Cook County, Illinois. While growing up, Alan spent a lot of time working with his dad at the shop, learning a good work ethic and asking lots of questions.

When the time came for college, Alan obtained an engineering degree and went to work at a nuclear plant. It wasn’t long though, before Alan told his dad he wanted to come back to South Chicago Heights and work in the family business with his brother. 

Now at age 62, Alan’s been at Do-Rite for over forty years, and he’s very pleased his son Paul is learning the die making business just like he did.

Over those years Do-Rite’s been in business, the tool industry has changed in many ways.

One change is that toolmakers don’t seem to encourage their children to enter the field. 

“I find that sad,” he said in a recent interview with TMA. “Our son is learning the business and we have hope that our grandkids will be interested in the years ahead.”