Simpson Technologies Corporation celebrates their 100th Year Anniversary in 2012

In 2012 Simpson Technologies Corporate celebrates our 100th year anniversary since our founding as a sole proprietorship in 1912 by Peter L. Simpson.  For 100 years Simpson Technologies and the Simpson family have been a leader in the foundry industry through innovation, leadership and service to the global metalcasting market.  Simpson Technologies Corporation (originally known as National Engineering Company), traces its history through three centuries of growth and progress beginning in the late 1800s with the arrival in North America of its founder Peter L. Simpson.

A lifelong foundryman, Peter L. Simpson began his career at 10 years old as a foundry apprentice in his native Scotland.  He immigrated to Canada and built a foundry in Winnipeg to produce castings for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad and later moved to Cleveland, Ohio where he realized his longstanding dream of becoming an American citizen.

Peter rapidly leveraged his initiative, hard work and genius into a string of business successes beginning with the world's first automatic brick press.  Prior to this invention, all bricks were made by hand.  Peter's automatic press produced six bricks a second and enabled the "brick revolution" of the pre-automobile age.  In 1884, the U.S. government granted a patent for the brick press design and this equipment became the basis of the Simpson Brick Press Company of Chicago, Illinois.

Peter continued his streak of successful inventions with the development of the first practical muller-type mixing machine, intended primarily for the refractory brick, ceramic and foundry industries.  This muller mixer became the primary product of Simpson Technologies, which Peter founded as a sole proprietorship in 1912 taking the Scottish bagpiper as its corporate symbol.

Leadership in the American metal casting industry
The Simpson family and Simpson Technologies are particularly unique in their involvement and leadership in the various organizations of the American metal casting industry.

In 1919 Simpson Technologies was one of the 25 original founders of the Foundry Equipment Manufacturers Association (now called the Casting Industry Suppliers Association, or CISA).  Four Simpson family members have served as President of FEMA/CISA including Herbert Simpson, Henry Dienst, Bruce Dienst and Tim McMillin.  Both Henry Dienst and Bruce Dienst have received the CISA President's Award which is the highest honor given to an individual by CISA and is intended to recognize an individual for their commitment to the principles and goals that unite the CISA membership.

Four Simpson family members have also served as President of the primary trade association in the American metalcasting industry - the American Foundry Society - including Herbert Simpson, Bruce Simpson, Henry Dienst and currently Tim McMillin.  Bruce Dienst is also currently serving on the AFS National Board of Directors.  In 1934, Simpson Technologies helped set up the first local chapter of the American Foundrymen's Society and Simpson's W. C. Packard was appointed as the first secretary of the Chicago chapter.  In 1945 Simpson Technologies donated funds to the American Foundry Society to establish the fifth and final AFS Gold Medal to be given to the foundryman who, during the year, has made the most constructive and practical contribution to the progress of the foundry industry.  The Peter L. Simpson Gold Medal was presented for the first time at the 50th Anniversary convention of the American Foundry Association (AFS) held in Cleveland, Ohio.  Numerous Simpson employees have won a variety of AFS awards including Service Citations, Awards of Scientific Merit and Cast Metals Institute Directors Awards as well as authoring speeches and technical papers published in AFS technical journals and magazines.

On April 28th, 1976 Bruce L. Simpson was awarded the William H. McFadden Gold Medal by the AFS "for over four decades of inspiring leadership and effective motivation of management and for the diligent encouragement of young men toward careers in the industry."  In his acceptance speech he mentions that he was a committed foundryman who dedicated his life to the industry that he knew had "taught him a way of life.  A man is developed by his working associates....Thank God in my case they were foundrymen."

In 1947 Simpson Technologies joined other industry leaders to establish and fund the Foundry Educational Foundation (www.fefinc.org) to assure a continuing supply of technical manpower for the metal casting industry.  Bruce Dienst served as FEF President in 2004.  Simpson Technologies has supported FEF with a contribution every year since 1947 and made the largest single donation ever received by FEF of over $700,000.00 in 2009 to create the Peter L. Simpson Fellowship Endowment to fund research into the general field of foundry sand preparation and control.  Simpson Technologies is one of only three companies to have achieved the Platinum level of corporate giving.  On November 9th, 2000 at the FEF Annual Banquet the Foundry Educational Foundation awarded Simpson Technologies Corporation the FEF "Supplier of the Year" Award.

In 1948 Bruce L. Simpson authored the book "Developments of the Metal Casting Industry" which is published by the American Foundrymen's Society to describe the history of the metal casting industry.  In the dedication Mr. S.V. Wood, then President of the American Foundrymen's Society, said "this volume is but one of the great contributions which the Simpson family - Peter L., the father; Herbert S., the son'; Bruce L., the grandson - has made to the foundry industry.  It has been a privilege to know intimately all three generations of this family.  Pride in Craft in each generation has been a constant inspiration to their associates."

Growth and Development
The constant development of new and innovative products and capabilities has been the foundation of our growth and success.  Following Peter L. Simpson's death, his son, Herbert S. Simpson, took over the Simpson Technologies and developed a line of mold handling, conveying and auxiliary equipment to augment the basic Mix-Muller.  Herbert's son Bruce L. Simpson helmed the company during the rapid industrialization of the WWII years, and in the mid-1960s, Bruce introduced the Simpson Multi Mull, which is still the only widely accepted continuous mixer for foundry molding sand preparation and is widely used in the production of a diverse array of process industry materials, from chocolate to charcoal.  In the 1980s, the company aggressively entered the age of high technology, investing in facilities for Computer-Aided Design (CAD), computerized inventory and purchasing, desktop publishing and an equipment development laboratory that led the industry.

Throughout its history, Simpson has grown and evolved as a business, from the Midwestern roots of the Simpson Brick Press Company to today's worldwide reach of Simpson Technologies Corporation.  In the 1930s, Herbert S. Simpson first brought the Simpson Technologies' products overseas through manufacturing and marketing agreements with Augusts Ltd. of Halifax, England and Georg Fischer AG of Schauffhausen, Switzerland.  Later in his career, Herbert expanded the company's overseas business relationships to include leading manufacturers in Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Japan.

In 1960, Bruce L. Simpson established Simpson's most successful and most important technology license agreement with Sintokogio, Ltd. of Nagoya, Japan, a business relationship that continues to this day.  Bruce also established the first directly operated overseas office in 1967 by setting up Simpson Maschinen AG in Zug, Switzerland to handle customers in continental Europe, Africa and the Middle East.  This business is now known as Simpson Technologies GmbH and is based in Steinhausen, Switzerland.

As a result of strong and continued growth, in 1991 the company moved its headquarters from downtown Chicago to a 3,000-square-meter suburban facility that includes a warehouse, a modern office complex, and a 500-square-meter advanced research and development laboratory.  Another strategic change came about in 1996 when the company name changed from National Engineering Company to Simpson Technologies Corporation.  Research had indicated that the Simpson name, which prefixes all of our product names, was one of the world's most recognized and respected brands in the foundry and process industry machinery market sector.  To capitalize on, and further strengthen our brand name recognition, we adopted the Simpson name in our company name together with the word "Technologies" which more accurately represents our strategic focus.  The change reaffirmed the commitment to continued development of innovative products and technologies like those first developed by Peter L. Simpson. Today, Bruce W. Dienst, the great-great-grandson of Peter L. Simpson, represents the fifth consecutive generation of family management to attain the position of company president.

Simpson Technologies grew rapidly through the 1990's and 2000's completing acquisitions of the Dietert line of on-line control & automation equipment in 1995, Beardsley & Piper LLC in 1998, Gerosa brand sand laboratory testing instrumentation in 1999, Hartley Controls Corporation in 2000 and the Georg Fischer brand of sand laboratory testing instrumentation from DISA Technologies in 2008.

The heart of our product line today remains the large industrial mixers. Throughout the United States and all parts of the world, the batch-type Simpson Mix-Muller & Simpson Speedmullor together with the continuous-type Simpson Multi-Mull are known and respected high performance, high intensity mixing machines whose applications are well diversified throughout all the steel, mining, foundry and chemical processing industries. Typical uses of the Simpson Mix-Muller now cover a wide range of diversified products, including ceramics, powdered metals, fertilizers, battery paste, colored pigments, chocolate, abrasives, mineral ores, welding fluxes, pharmaceuticals, resins, charcoal, refractories, military explosives and specialty chemicals.

However, Simpson Technologies Corporation remains particularly distinguished, and is still best known throughout the world, for our achievements in all phases of foundry molding sand preparation, including mixing, cooling, reclamation, aeration, on-line control and automation, laboratory testing, system engineering, and a wide variety of process automation equipment.  Our customers include virtually all of the major foundry organizations throughout the world.

The Company is still guided by the belief that technical advancement and innovation, superior engineering, manufacturing quality, productivity, reliability and customer service are the most important principles essential to achieving our goals for sustained growth and success.