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FASTENER HISTORY
1991 FIN – Thiokol to Enter the Fastener Field Via Acquisition of Huck

October 23, 1991 FIN – Federal-Mogul Corp., Southfield (Detroit), Michigan, plans to sell its wholly owned Huck Manufacturing Co. subsidiary to the Thiokol Corp., Ogden, Utah for about $170 million. Huck Manufacturing Co., (which will be renamed Huck International), Irvine, California, a wholly owned subsidiary of Federal-Mogul (which acquired Huck in 1980), manufactures and sells abroad line of precision fasteners made in a broad variety of designs, head styles, diameters, and metals to meet either high tensile and/or high shear strength requirements. Huck Mfg. was started by Louis C. Huck, a Detroit inventor and industrialist in 1940 to produce an aluminum aircraft blind rivet he had designed.
In World War II this fastener was used on such aircraft as the B-24 Liberator and the F-6 Hellcat fighter.
The second of Huck’s two basic fastener inventions took shape in 1944 when he answered a request from the U.S. Army Air Corp. for a better way to fasten together the two halves of a droppable fuel tank. His solution was the two-piece lockbolt type.
After the war years, the blind fasteners and lock bolts were introduced into such industrial markets as railroad, trucks and trailers, mining, farm equipment and construction. Besides fasteners, produced at three U.S. plants (Carson, California; Waco, Texas; and Tucson, Arizona) there are also facilities in Canada, the UK and France.
The 316,000 sq. ft. Waco, Texas plant was established in 1973 (when A. Watson Armour III of the Chicago meatpacker family was president of Huck.)
Industrial fastener production was moved there from Detroit. The 70,000 sq. ft. Tucson, Arizona plant was opened for business in 1987 partly to supplement the Carson, California plant’s production.
This plant has a Japanese type of bottoms up management (EI/PM) which uses involvement and participative management. Huck also produces a broad line of installation tools and hydraulic units for use with fasteners at its Kingston, New York facility. Huck, which is headed by H. George Faulkner, president and CEO, 47, has about 1300 employees worldwide. Federal-Mogul, the parent company of Huck Manufacturing, was founded in 1899 and is a global manufacturer and distributor (40 plants and 70 warehouses worldwide) of precision parts.
The company is grouped into two industry segments: vehicular and industrial components (ball and roller bearings, engine and transmission products, sealing devices, powdered metal parts, fuel pumps, lighting and electrical components, air bearing spindles, etc.) which account for about 85% of sales and fastening systems (fasteners, installation tools and power sources) which account for about 15% of sales.
In 1991, Federal-Mogul’s sales will probably be a little more or less than $1 billion.
Most of Federal-Mogul’s recent efforts have been in the non-fastener segment of its business. In 1990 it acquired Glyco AG; R Dietz Co.; Villafane Auto Supply; and Australian Automotive Transmission Spares, all involved in the auto field.
The only recent fastener acquisition we recall was in 1988 when Huck purchased the assets of Gregory Tool Co., a manufacturer of fastener installation tools used primarily in the auto aftermarket. Thiokol Corp. is primarily a manufacturer of solid rocket propulsion system for the aerospace and defense markets.
Founded in 1930, Thiokol Corp. and its successor, Thiokol Chemical Corp. operated in various corporate forms until merged in 1982 with Morton-Norwich Products, Inc. and operated thereafter as a division of Morton Thiokol Inc.
In 1989 Morton Thiokol Inc. spun off its specialty chemicals, salt and inflatable restraint systems businesses to a newly formed subsidiary, Morton International, Inc., which became a separate public corporation upon pro-rata dividend distribution of all Morton International common stock to the shareholders of record on July 1, 1989 at which time the company name was once again Thiokol Corp.
The company at present operates in only one business segment; solid rock propulsion systems (and related products and services) for the aerospace and defense markets.
The company has about 11,500 employees and has 10 operating facilities in Utah, Maryland, Nevada, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana.
The product lines of all divisions at full output can manufacture 3 1/2 million pound of rocket propellants, illuminants and explosives per month. U. Edwin Garrison, 63, is president and CEO having on July 1, 1991 succeeded Robert R. March, 66, in those positions.
The company’s board of Directors has 10 members, one of whom, Neil A. Armstrong, was spacecraft commander of Apollo II, the first manned lunar landing mission. Net income for fiscal 1991 was $53,424,000 (up 29% from $41,371,000 in 1990 and $17,714,000 in 1989) and earnings per share in 1991, were $2.75 (in comparison with $2.15 in 1990 and 92 cents in 1989). Sales in 1991 were $1,269,800,000 (up 6% compared with $1,169,600,000 in 1990 and $1,169,600,000 in 1989). ©1991/2009 Fastener Industry News.
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