Most of the news from the Paris Air Show last month was of deals for major aerospace firms, as bigwig companies jockeyed for headlines by timing press releases announcing considerable transactions over the course of a week.
Now is where the smaller companies come in, particularly for the hundreds of second- and third-tier suppliers that dot Central Connecticut, each jockeying to fill the massive supply chain with the parts needed to build the aerospace equipment everyone’s spent the week promoting.
Bristol’s Classic Coil Co. is one of them. The 90-person company, based in a 25,000-square-foot factory on Chestnut Street sits in one of the town’s main industrial parks, 229 Technology Park.
Classic, as its name suggests, makes coils. Don’t confuse these devices with springs. Coils, which are essentially tightly-wound electrical wires, can be used in a variety of electronic devices, everything from military guidance systems, sensors, medical devices and controlling electrical motors. Classic has its own division, Aerospace Precision Windings, which is dedicated to producing coils specifically for the aerospace industry
The air show orders may be even more of a boon for Bauer Inc.. The 50-person company, located down the street on Century Drive, makes test and maintenance equipment for airplanes. It makes test equipment used on engines made by Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce and most other jet engines.
But they also make the equipment for less glamorous, but equally important tasks such as inflating planes’ tires and testing their brakes.
Another 229 Technology Park manufacturer, the 30-person Rostra Vernatherm, makes fluid control valves, many of which are used in aerospace products.
These companies are by no means the biggest aerospace manufacturers in town. Bristol, of course, is the headquarters of Barnes Group Inc., a major aerospace manufacturer, and one of the locations of another major manufacturer, Danaher Corp., which makes among other things, fire suppression equipment.
The park is home to a host of small manufacturers that supply pieces and equipment used in a variety of industries. Tab Manufacturing Corp., a 20-person contract manufacturer, is one. Another is TAK Enterprises, a 20-person manufacturer that makes and sells the devices used in factories to cut, straighten and form wire rod. It also does some contract manufacturing.
But there’s more than aerospace-related manufacturing that goes on in and around Technology Park.
One of the park’s more interesting manufacturers is Amstep Inc. You’ve likely never heard of it, but if you’ve walked up a stairwell at the University of Connecticut or Central Connecticut State University, you’ve stepped on its products.
Amstep makes the non-skid aluminum surfaces that fit on the front edges of stairs and help stair climbers avoid slipping, particularly in the rain.
The company, which has about nine employees, also makes and sells coverings used to renovate stairs that have been worn by ages of foot-traffic.
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Kenneth J. St. Onge is associate editor of the Hartford Business Journal.
