Despatch Industries history

1904: Grapp devised a small flour testing oven for Pillsbury.

1913: Despatch Manufacturing Company was officially incorporated in the state of Minnesota.

1916: Grapp invents an electric oven for baking bread.

1917: America enters World War I. Despatch invents small, custom ovens for armament production, as well as larger foundry and finish bake ovens for steel producers in America and Europe.

1924: Despatch finances its first power hacksaw, drill presses and small lathes to streamline steel cutting instead of doing it all by hand.

1925: Despatch receives a request from Moore Bedding Company to build its first continuous conveyor oven for baking bed springs after they were dip-painted.

1926: Despatch develops a relationship with Bennett Insulation Company, a Minneapolis neighbor, and is entered in a new industry, creating ovens to dry piping insulation.

1928: Despatch opens its second sales office in Chicago.

1932: Grapp helps the company survive the Great Depression by inventing a beer spigot using a cycle valve that could be used to pressurize a beer barrel.

1934: Despatch makes its largest installation to date when it creates a system to process a variety of parts for Seeger Refrigerator Company.

1938: Despatch builds ovens large enough to supply up to 3.5 million BTUs, and some designs include multiple conveyors.

1943: Despatch designs ovens for hot air and dry heat sterilization of glassware, needles and flasks.

1946: Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M) needs ovens for manufacturing Scotch™ Cellophane Tape and calls on Despatch.

1947: Despatch manufactures conveyor systems to carry small parts, including radio and TV components, through curing ovens.

1948: With its growing expertise, Despatch starts producing tower, batch and molding ovens for large US companies, including a fully-automated system measuring 200 feet long for John Deere.

With production of the circuit board in the 1950’s, new soldering methods were needed and the first “Wave Soldering System’ was introduced.

1951: Despatch designs a finishing system for the Pentagon that helps produce 200-pound projectiles for missiles.

1952: Despatch designs and builds its first gas-fired, radiant tube quick quench furnace.

1954: Despatch works with Douglas Aircraft to develop a preheating oven to shape Plexiglas® windshields for fighter aircraft.

1955: Ford Motor Company asks Despatch to build a windshield bending system.

1958: Despatch sells a lab oven to Dave Packard, the co-founder of Hewlett Packard.

1964: Construction starts on major new addition to Despatch offices.

1968: Despatch produces its first commercial, self-cleaning convection oven and – in a joint venture with Possis, another Minneapolis company – creates a shrink-wrapping system.

1969: After years of strong sales and profitability, Piper, Jaffray & Hopwood takes Despatch public.

1970: Despatch is a dominant player in semiconductor burn-in equipment for the rapidly growing United States electronics industry.

1976: Despatch celebrates manufacturing its 100,000th piece of equipment.

1977: Despatch key customers include 3M, Ford, General Motors and EG&G Wakefield, a burn-in electronics company that sells test chambers to Intel.

Then, in the 1980’s, ZEVA changed its name to Soltec, and the company continued to grow with the expanding electronics industry.

1982: Despatch acquires Ransco Industries, a California-based company that specializes in cold process equipment and starts producing its first line of environmental chambers.

1985: Despatch receives a patent for its new carbon fiber treatment system.

1987: Despatch ships and installs the first United States made, self-sterilizing depyrogenation tunnels.

1988: Boeing expands its sheet metal facility and Despatch supplies the company with its first mobile, quick-quench furnace system.

In 1989, Soltec introduced reflow soldering machines to serve the growing surface mount technology (SMT) market.

1991: Despatch develops the MCM polyimide cure system, for Multi-Chip Modules in the electronics industry.

1992: Despatch creates a $2 million, patented production radiant tower treater for the Arlon Company.

1993: Despatch produces its first Magnetic Annealing Oven used for photo resist curing, required in the production of disk drive recording heads.

1994: Despatch develops the UV360, a surface decontamination system for the pharmaceutical industry that decontaminates pre-sterilized packages before they are taken to sterile environments.

1995: PCC Small conveyorized ovens were used in a variety of drying and curing operations for electronics manufacturing.

1997: Despatch launches its first website.

2000: Despatch is awarded several large Solution Heat Treat Furnace projects from aerospace manufacturing companies.

2001: LCC stackable clean process ovens were designed to save clean manufacturing floor space.

2002: Despatch celebrates its 100-year anniversary.

In 2005 Despatch entered the solar cell manufacturing market with the launch of its first metallization firing and drying furnace which soon became the world’s best-selling furnace in the market.

2011: Despatch is acquired by Illinois Tool Works.

2012: Focal Point process control system developed for composite curing is introduced.