Hitchiner Manufacturing Co history

In 1949 Morison put up 50 percent of the purchase price for the foundry; his son, John H. Morison, paid the other half and became president of the company, which continued to operate under its original name.

By April 1950 sales reached an annual rate of $250,000 and Hitchiner Manufacturing Co., Inc. broke even.

In 1951 the company and its 50 employees moved to a newly constructed plant in Milford, New Hampshire.

Hitchiner experimented with ceramic shell molding and in 1961 was one of the first companies to install a shell-building machine that lowered the cost of mold making versus the traditional solid-mold process.

In 1966 he hired Nicholas Babich from the Singer Company to become plant manager of the Milford facility and who later became vice-president of operations.

In 1969 Hitchiner opened a new full-service nonferrous plant in O'Fallon, Missouri.

The CLA and CLV processes were patented in 1975.

The long-range value of research and development came to the fore with the 1979 opening of a pilot plant at Hitchiner's Technical Center for exploring the economic viability of an enhanced CLA process known as the countergravity, low-pressure air melt sand (CLAS) process.

At year-end 1981 Hitchiner reported sales of $54.5 million, and Nicholas Babich returned to the company as president and chief executive officer.

One implementation of Babich's strategy was the 1988 opening of the company's first offshore production facility, Hitchiner S.A. de C.V., in Santiago Tianguistenco, Mexico.

In April 1997 the company announced the erection of yet another plant in Milford.

MCT also built a larger, upgraded SSCLA casting machine for the new Automated Casting Facility to be activated in 1998.