Allen & Heath history

He left a job as head engineer of an established tool and die company in 1951 to join a company that was operating on a shoestring and struggling to keep up with sales.

Hexcel celebrates 50 years of Redux 775 film adhesive, created in May 1954.

1956 Berkeley Plant Explodes In the early hours of November 12, one of the ovens in Hexcel's Berkeley plant explodes, igniting the whole building.

1958 Heath Acquires Tecna Plastics Harold Heath, a journeyman machinist trained at Boeing, acquires Tecna plastics and combines it with his modest machine shop in Renton, Washington.

J.P. Stevens acquires the company in the 1960's, renaming it Stevens-Genin, and the company begins developing fiberglass fabrics for the printed circuit board industry.

In 1961 the company chose a new president, William S. Powell, who subsequently restructured the company's operations, exiting several unprofitable lines of business.

1964 World Speed Record Broken Donald Cambell's revolutionary Bluebird car, incorporating honeycomb core panels supplied from Ciba in Duxford, England, breaks the world speed record.

Most major space structures launched since 1967 use its projects.

In 1968 Hexcel purchased one of its major suppliers, Coast Manufacturing, and that company's three manufacturing plants.

Allen & Heath was in the vanguard of the first wave of great British mixer companies, starting life at the heart of London’s swinging music scene in 1969.

Soon after its release in the early 1970’s they built a custom quadraphonic mixer for Pink Floyd.

The company brought these to market in 1971, the first time it had made something for direct retail sale.

1972 Stevens-Genin Shifts Market Focus Acquired four years previously by J.P. Stevens, the world's second largest textile manufacturer, Pierre Genin & Cie becomes Stevens-Genin and shifts its focus to emerging areas such as composites and electronic components, such as printed circuit boards.

They make many different versions but it didn’t really start to take off until 1973.

1977 Hexcel Acquires Towers Scientific Hexcel enters the medical field with its acquisitions of Tower Scientific, a company that specializes in the manufacture of custom implants for knee, hip and shoulder joints.

A man named Carey Davis joined the company in 1978 and is Allen and Heaths longest staff member.

In the early 1980’s Allen and Heath had outgrown their factories because business was booming for them and facilities in London too.

Returning to a focus on its core technologies, the company sold its medical products line soon after its exit from the ski market in 1981.

In 1983 a very important man to the company joined Glenn Rogers.

After Ciba-Geigy acquires a 50% ownership stake in 1984, Danutec diversifies its product line, producing special glass fiber epoxy prepreg for use in windmill rotor blades and industrial grade panels for marine applications.

In 1986 CEO Merrill stepped down, to be replaced by COO Robert L. Witt.

Sales had peaked in fiscal 1988 at $399 million, but dropped off the following year, though Hexcel still posted a profit.

In the 1990’s Allen and Heath made a serious change going into live sound coming up with the famous GL series.

A restructuring was announced in late 1992, with a 20 percent reduction in the company's workforce, and sales or closings of more than a third of its facilities.

In July 1993, CEO Bob Witt resigned, to be replaced by the team of John Lee and John Doyle, both company directors.

The Anaheim, California-based Ciba Composites had 1994 sales of $293 million, just slightly lower than Hexcel's $313.8 million.

In early February 1995 the company emerged from Chapter 11, having arranged $45 million in exit financing from Citicorp.

In June 1996 another major competitor, the Composites Products Division of Hercules, Inc., was acquired.

Since 1997 the company had been following the "Lean Enterprise" philosophy, which held that elimination of waste and redundancy in a business led to reduced costs, improved quality, and greater customer satisfaction.

In February 1998 Hexcel announced the formation of a joint venture with Boeing and two Malaysian aviation firms to be called Asian Composite Manufacturing Sdn.

Further consolidation of operations occurred in March 1999, when Hexcel announced the closing of a Clark-Schwebel plant in Cleveland, Georgia.

not to nitpick but that isn't the 2001 version of the Xone:02, it's the silly-looking version that was released several years later

In October 2003, Hexcel opened a new 134,553 sq. ft. production unit at Les Aveniéres, France dedicated entirely to carbon fiber weaving and multiaxial and preforming operations.

Live Sound International. (2005). Allen and Heath celebrates 35 years.

2006 Hexcel Narrows Its Focus Hexcel decides to narrow its focus and consolidate activities around its carbon fiber, reinforcements for composites, honeycomb, matrix and structures product lines.

The acquisition will be accretive to earnings per share in FY2008” D&M, (2008)

“ By then we’d done the MiniMixer and the MiniMixer MK II, which was an expandable system with features like the aux box and monitor box.” (Rogers, 2009)

Allen and Heath. (2010). Allen and Heath 40th anniversary.

2011 Boeing Delivers - Hexcel Expands Boeing delivers the 1st 787 Dreamliner and 1st 747-8.

Seek Logo. (2012), Vector Logo: Allen and Heath, [online], available: http://www.seeklogo.com/allen-and-heath-logo-6795.html [accessed 03 May, 2012].

In July, Vincenzo Nibali and Team Astana win the 2014 Tour de France on bike wheels manufactured by CORIMA using Hexcel’s carbon fiber composites.

Hexcel wins 2015 Bronze Award from Vestas for quality performance and innovative development.

Patrick Winterlich is named to succeed Wayne Pensky as Chief Financial Officer, effective September 2017.

However, as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the globe, leading to a dramatic decline in air travel, the two companies announced in April 2020 a mutual termination of the merger agreement.