🔒Lee Co. opens Westbrook Innovation Center to accelerate product development

Thomas Frosell, vice president of innovation for the Lee Company in Westbrook, showed off a small solenoid valve, covered in wires and attached to an improbable looking test rig. “We sell millions of these, it’s been a bread-and-butter product line for us,” he said. “And we figured out how to make it work in this other market.” The tiny valve has been used for years in medical devices, specifically in benchtop diagnostic equipment. But Frosell and his team want to repurpose it for the hottest new industry around — data centers, which need huge amounts of water for cooling. Engineers are working on adapting the compact valve to precisely regulate cooling water used to manage heat from computer chips. Its small size could allow it to be integrated closer to the chip itself for more targeted, energy-efficient cooling. The project illustrates the type of research the Lee Co. hopes to accelerate at its new 27,500-square-foot Innovation Center in Westbrook — a $20 million investment aimed at expanding product development. The company recently debuted the innovation center during a public event attended by several top executives, including Chairman Bill Lee. “We Lees, we’re all dreamers, and one of my dreams was this building,” he said, calling it “a vibrant place to attract young engineering talent and people who want to work in innovation.” The facility will employ about 25 people when fully staffed, mostly engineers, along with drafters and machinists. The company said it is also hiring for production roles. “Whether machinists or engineers, digital talents, marketing talents, assembly — whatever, we need people at all levels of our organization,” Lee said. Lee Co. manufactures precision fluid-control components used in aerospace, automotive, health care and other industries. One of the largest family-owned companies in the state, it employs about 1,200 people across its Westbrook and Essex locations. The investment comes as research spending has steadily increased across U.S. industries in recent years. Research and development expenditures were estimated to reach about $993 billion in 2024, up from $937 billion in 2023, according to the National Science Foundation.

‘Tools to succeed’

Founded in 1948 by Bill’s father Leighton Lee, the company has a storied history. Third-generation CEO Marietta Lee reminded the crowd gathered for the innovation center opening that the Lee Co.’s components were present at the first moon landing, regulating the oxygen in the astronauts’ spacesuits. She said the new center honors her grandfather. “He was genuinely curious and excited by possibilities, and this new innovation center is a direct descendant of that spirit,” she said. “This facility is where we will create components that will power our next 75 years of growth.” The company produces thousands of components used to control the movement of liquids and gases in complex systems. Its products range from miniature valves and pumps to restrictors and flow regulators used in aircraft, satellites, medical equipment, automobiles and industrial machinery. The innovation center, which is located in a fully renovated building dating to the 1980s, is set out in three different bays. The first includes offices and cubicles for up to 20 engineers, arranged around an open central workspace with workbenches where ideas can be quickly tested. The company says engineers working on projects from all industry segments will mix together at the center to allow for a free exchange of ideas. A second bay contains an array of 3D printers where prototype parts can be produced either from plastic or metal. The Lee Co. is only the third location in the United States to install a lithography-based metal printer from Austrian manufacturer Incus capable of printing at a resolution of 20 microns — less than the width of a human hair. “This makes really beautiful parts, you can see, real crisp edges — most people wouldn’t know that that’s 3D printed,” said Frosell, showing off a tiny component. The third bay houses a fully functional machine shop staffed by five machinists whose time is dedicated to the innovation center. Frosell said research and development operations that have to send prototype designs to outside machine shops might wait weeks for a part to come back. Now at the Lee Co. center, that time can be reduced to days or even hours for a simple component. “I ran an R&D group at a big company before, a Fortune 100, and I did not have the luxury of having this,” he said. “It’s about being able to do things really fast.”

‘Engineering playground’

Frosell was hired less than two years ago to oversee the design and construction of the new center. A mechanical engineer by trade, he spent more than a decade working in research and development for oilfield services company Halliburton, and was most recently senior director of global engineering and product management for CECO Environmental Corp., a Texas-based environmental technology company. He says the opportunity to help build the Lee Co.’s innovation center was too good to pass up. “It is an engineering playground,” he said. “If you are an engineer, this is the coolest place to work. We’re going to give you the tools to succeed.”