Most people indulge in potato chips now and then. And one of the first things they notice when opening the package is the shiny aluminum surface that coats the potato chip bag’s insides.
It’s an important tool that helps keep chips fresh. And in any given grocery store chip aisle, there’s a good chance that many of the bags were made using parts from an Ashford company, Yeagle Technology.
Yeagle specializes in manufacturing and servicing parts used in vacuum chambers. A vacuum chamber is a device that sucks all the air, molecules and other impurities out of an area so that a chemical steam can be used to coat something.
Company President Brian Savulis calls it the theory of the spaghetti pot. Four-eyed pasta lovers can attest: staring into a pot of boiling spaghetti produces a steam-coated pair of lenses. And while that’s a great technique to clean your glasses, it’s an even better way to coat the inside of potato chip bags with aluminum, much like Yeagle customer Toray Plastics of Quonset Point, R.I. — one of the largest makers of the potato chip wrapping.
Schick, another client, uses the technique to coat its razor blades. Optics companies use similar techniques to coat infrared lenses.
Edward Yeagle, who died in March, founded the company 23 years ago, after working on a team that developed a process for coating the mirrors used on the Hubble Space Telescope. Two employees — Savulis and Bobbie Ross — bought the company from Yeagle several years ago. It occupies two 7,500-square foot buildings on Nott Highway, better known as Route 74.
Yeagle, with 10 employees, is actually in the running for the title of “largest manufacturer” in this town of 4,100.
Its competition for that title sits about 800 feet down the street — Image Plus, a similarly sized manufacturer which builds and installs awnings and sun shades on business storefronts.
Ashford also boasts at least one small machine shop, Country Tool & Die, about five miles away on Pumpkin Hill Road.
There’s another Ashford business just up the street from Yeagle that, although not involved directly in manufacturing, ensures many manufacturers get their wares to market more quickly.
It’s MFG Automation, a five-person shop that integrates robot manufacturing systems with factories in and around New England.
It uses robots made by ABB in Sweden, and fuses them with conveyor belts, machining tools and high-tech software. It also works with several machine shops to help make custom products for its customers, said President and Founder John Phelps.
Phelps has helped build and install robot systems at injection molder Dymotek in Ellington, Latex Foam International in Shelton and New Weld Rubbermaid in East Longmeadow, Mass. â–
Kenneth J. St. Onge is managing editor of the Hartford Business Journal.
