PERSPECTIVE: Rockford: High-Tech Fasteners in Future?

John Wolz

Heading toward Rockford on Interstate 90 are 18-wheelers loaded with coils of wire rod. The trucks are a visible sign that Rockford is still a fastener manufacturing town.
After decades of fastener job losses, Acument Global Technologies’ decision to manufacture aerospace fasteners in Rockford represents a turnaround for the north central Illinois city on the Rock River.
“We’re treated as heroes,” Acument’s Camcar Aerospace Manufacturing Center & Research executive director Tim McGuire says of the “welcome home feeling” he is receiving in Rockford.
“The Camcar name is still recognized from the old days,” McGuire points out. “People tell me, “So glad you are back.””
And McGuire is enjoying hiring. “Something good is happening.”
Rockford’s economic leaders are looking beyond Camcar and talking about titanium and other high-tech fastener products as the future for the industry in Rockford.

Rockford’s Fastener Background
In the 1800s wood screws and nails were needed to supply the furniture industry started by Swedish immigrants in Rockford. The Rock River provided both transportation and the site for a dam that would harness waterpower for factories. The Galena & Chicago Union Railroad moved materials in and products out.
By 1900 Rockford was an industrial hub and a manufacturing center for machine tools, furniture and agricultural equipment.
Following World War II, some Rockford industries, including furniture and agricultural equipment, were nearly extinct. Fastener manufacturing and machine tool industries were at a fraction of their peak production. By the mid-1980s unemployment was setting records.
Beyond the factories, Rockford historically led in fastener technology. In 2002 the Industrial Fasteners Institute awarded the late Ray Carlson its Trowbridge Technology Award. Carlson was recognized for developing the “Raycarl heading process, which expanded manufacturing capabilities, in both size and complexity, to levels that continue to benefit the cold forming industry.”
But fastener manufacturing has continued to move west from Rockford … to Japan in the 1980s, Taiwan in the 1990s and next China.
There was once a thriving Fastener Tech Center in Rockford to train header operators.
The most recent blow to the city’s fastener business was the 2007 bankruptcy and demise of Rockford Products Corp.
Despite the Asian competition, the Rockford Area Economic Development Council lists 22 fastener companies in the city, which has a population of 152,916 and claims a three-county metropolitan area of 339,100.
The current chair of the Industrial Fasteners Institute, Brian Burgy, is the president of Rockford Fastener Inc., a privately held fastener manufacturer founded in 1977. IFI has six member companies in Rockford.
Acument”s decision to manufacture aerospace fasteners in Rockford was based on the plant’s being available and the region’s being “blessed with highly skilled machine operators,” Camcar’s McGuire explained. “They have 10, 15 or 20 years experience.”

Rockford’s Derry
For Rockford native Bill Derry, fasteners are his career. As a college senior Derry went to a job fair to look for a position with a bank. There was a long line at the bank’s recruiting table and there was no one waiting at the Camcar table.
After 18 years with Camcar, in 1989 Derry joined Rockford Products, and in 1990 he and his brother Jim acquired Field Fastener Supply Co. from founder Dick Field. Derry remained with Rockford Products for two years until the Field business grew sufficiently.
In 2001 Field Fastener acquired B&B Fasteners Inc. of suburban Chicago. Last year Field acquired one of the two distribution portions of the Rockford International distribution business of Rockford Products Corp.
Five years ago, 80% of Field’s business was within 200 miles, Derry noted. Today Field has satellite facilities in five states.
An Illinois customer wanted Field Fastener to provide its VMI service to a plant in Malaysia. Now Field is supplying fasteners internationally – some of which never come into its headquarters warehouse in the Rockford suburb of Machesney Park.
Derry likes Rockford for more than business: “The tree-lined streets are a great place to raise a family, friendly community, low housing prices and recreation just to the north in Wisconsin.”
Derry, the 1997-98 president of the National Fastener Distributors Association, sees that Rockford fastener manufacturing is headed in the right direction. “It has started to raise capabilities for specialty production, and that is exactly what should happen.”
Acument”s aerospace division and Field’s growth beyond Rockford are just what local officials envision as the way to expand the area’s fastener economy.
Janyce Fadden, president of the Rockford Area Economic Development Council, asks existing local businesses, “Are your customers exporting?” If so, she wants them to do what Field Fastener is doing grow globally with its customers. That is why the council offers export training.
A manufacturers consortium – the Manufacturers Association of the Rock River Valley – is a not-for-profit public/private consortium of smaller companies working together to bid on projects they could not consider individually. Small manufacturers are encouraged to work with a chain of suppliers for services, from tooling to heat treating and plating. The city helped subsidize the start of the consortium.
Robert Lamb, industrial development manager for the City of Rockford, told FIN that manufacturing with titanium is a growth industry for Rockford.
The largest employer in Rockford, Hamilton Sunstrand, is adding 100 engineers to its total employment of 2,300.
Lamb pointed out that Sunstrand is testing 38 of the 40 Boeing 787 systems at its Rockford facilities. “You feel like you’ve walked inside a 787” after visiting the testing facility, Lamb observed.
The next-generation jet is “revolutionary” in using composites, cutting maintenance and reducing weight to save jet fuel, Lamb observed.
Adding that the custom design alloy fasteners for the first space rover came from Rockford, Lamb said the future is in the high-tech niche. “We are not going to compete on a commodity basis.”
Reid Montgomery, the city’s director of Community & Economic Development, cited the skilled labor, Rockford’s proximity to Midwest industry – a one-hour drive to OEMs in the western suburbs of Chicago – and good access to containers and raw materials.
Montgomery noted a unique local advantage: Rockford International Airport is the second-largest UPS hub, with 1,600 employees servicing 36 flights per day. Packages can be brought to the UPS facility as late as 10:30 p.m. and be put on a plane the same night.
Though Field’s business has grown beyond Rockford, Derry finds “it’s still a reasonably good manufacturing market” – including a Chrysler plant with 1,800 employees. “We have a good customer base here.”
Derry is delighted to be in Rockford and happy with his 34 years in the fastener business. Recalling the job fair that got him into fasteners instead of banking, Derry muses, “I could be the head teller somewhere.” \ �2008 FastenerNews.com