🔒Here’s why two Greater Hartford large-scale parts manufacturers have joined forces

An East Berlin machine shop that makes massive milled parts for the submarine industry changed hands in May, part of the reshaping of Connecticut’s defense supply chain that’s accelerated in recent years. Sold off by the otherwise rapidly expanding Pursuit Aerospace, TM Industries was bought by Newington-based Reno Machine. And the move turned out to be a return to its roots. TM Industries has existed since 1962, founded by Tony Miccaci. “Tony was Reno’s first employee, and I guess he saw the opportunity to start somewhat of a similar kind of business,” said TM’s General Manager Paul Henney. The two do indeed have many synergies. “We do a lot of large-diameter turning, manufacturing on a very large scale,” said Antonio Occhialini, vice president of operations at Reno Machine, and grandson of the company’s founder. “For a very long time, we really thought of ourselves as kind of (one) of the biggest in the game.”

That is, until they took a look at TM Industries’ 55,000-square-foot East Berlin facility, at 134 Commerce St., which specializes in the development and production of large power-generation components for customers that include BAE Systems, GE Aerospace and General Dynamics Electric Boat. “Folks down here at TM have some giant equipment that can really handle some incredibly large parts and tools if needed,” Occhialini said. “They have overhead crane capacity up to 60 tons. It’s a fantastic addition to what Reno was already trying to accomplish in a large-format machining space.” That reflects the clients that TM has been serving in marine systems, principally Groton shipyard Electric Boat. Reno, by contrast, has historically catered to the aerospace industry players in Connecticut, including Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky and Collins Aerospace, using its five-axis CNC milling machines to make large-scale parts like rotor blades or heat exchangers. “We at Reno came from the aerospace world. We were trying to get into the marine systems world as well,” Occhialini said. “These folks happen to have a real lock step in with the marine system world. So, their operators and machinists here, there was no grace period where we had to catch them up. They already knew exactly what they needed to do.” TM’s Henney is equally enthusiastic. “This acquisition has brought to the table great opportunities for growth,” he said. “It’s in the news every day as it relates to Electric Boat and what their supply chain is demanding right now. They’re looking for that vendor that can provide that additional capabilities and capacity.” “When you think about the support that we are providing for the country’s defense, the sky is the limit in terms of growth,” Henney added.

Vertical integration

TM was Reno’s first acquisition since it bought Canton-based engineering services firm Design Company in 2010. Occhialini sees the now-expanded company as strategically placed in central Connecticut, within easy reach of most of its biggest customers. With the addition of TM, Reno Machine says it expects revenue growth of 30% in the next 12 months, and an additional 30% the year after. The other side of this transaction is Manchester’s Pursuit Aerospace, the private equity-backed group formed in 2023 by the merger of Connecticut manufacturers Whitcraft Group and Paradigm Precision. Pursuit — which is backed by New York City-based Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Greenbriar Equity Group of Greenwich — is taking its portfolio in the opposite direction. “Submarine parts is not really core to Pursuit’s trajectory,” said Jacqueline Gallo, executive vice president of operations at the group. “And so, although we love (TM Industries) — people are great, they have a lot of great capabilities — it’s not a site that we felt was in our long-term growth strategy.” Gallo said the company is not looking to sell off any more of its operations, but is focused on growing its core business. “We’re in a big growth trajectory,” she said. “The Berlin sale allows us to take our resources and focus on the other shops in Connecticut that are doing aerospace-only work.” She said Pursuit will do that through several strategies, including investing in new technology and acquiring businesses that help its vertical integration. “We are very active in acquisitions. We have lots of acquisition targets, (in) Connecticut, the U.S. and across the globe,” Gallo said. Pursuit’s strategy — specializing and vertically integrating the services it offers to original equipment manufacturers through investment and acquisition — represents a major recent trend that is reshaping Connecticut’s supply chain industry, experts say. Historically made up of small, independently owned and highly specialized shops, the supply chain landscape is experiencing significant consolidation through private equity investment. New York-based investment firm Jahani and Associates recently reported that private equity firms invested around $262 billion in manufacturing companies nationally between 2020 and 2024, and Connecticut has been at the forefront of that trend. It’s partly a function of the huge stress that the supply chain experienced during the pandemic. The recovery, which has attracted new sources of capital to this previously overlooked industrial space, has emphasized logistical efficiency. The sector is also urgently seeking to replace an aging workforce. TM Industries adds some 21 employees to Reno Machine’s current 58, and the combined company now has several open positions that it’s actively looking to fill. Occhialini says the short-term focus is retaining skilled operators, with a long-term eye to recruiting a younger generation of employees and looking for overall workforce growth. “When you’re buying a company, you’re not just buying the machines, you’re buying the people as well,” he said. “That was very, very important to us that we had personnel that could really handle what we thought were going to be the technical challenges going forward.” And while the acquisition diversifies Reno’s customer base, it also expands its capabilities within a very specific supply chain market. “We like the big stuff,” Occhialini said. “That’s our niche market that we like to attract work from. And we want to continue to be the premier manufacturer in that space.”