Global Fastener News

OBITUARY

The following obituaries are from the pages of Fastener Industry News since 1979 and other sources.
Names are in alphabetical order. Premium subscribers to GlobalFastenerNews.com may use the Search feature to find specific companies or other details.

2007 – John “Jack” Adair, 69, purchasing manager for H. Paulin & Co.

2020 – Winston Leonard “Win” Adams, 78, and his spouse, Barbara, founded Adams Nut & Bolt in 1979. He was president of the National Fastener Distributors Association for 1986-87. They sold Adams Nut & Bolt to Würth in 1997 and he retired in 2001.

1995 – Carlo Agrati, 81, founder and president of Agrati Industrial Group in Veduggio, Italy. He founded Agrati S.p.A. near Milan in 1939 and it grew to an international fastener manufacturer with facilities throughout Western Europe and the U.S.A.

2005 – Frank Akstens had been manager of standards and staff engineer with the Industrial Fasteners Institute. He held bachelors and masters degrees in mechanical engineering. He started with the IFI in 1971. His early IFI work included spearheading a program to help fastener manufacturers achieve OSHA compliance for noise level reductions. He became editor of Fastener Technology International in the early 1980s and returned to the IFI in 1987 as standards manager.
“During the late 1980s when the counterfeit bolting issues surfaced, he was instrumental in developing extensive import/export intelligence and then used this to help U.S. Customs identify shipments,” wrote IFI colleague Charlie Wilson. He recently helped produce a Guide to Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing.

2010 – Joseph T. Alderisio, 71, founder of Captive Fastener Corporation. He led the fastener manufacturing company from its start in 1974 in Midland Park, NJ, to two manufacturing facilities in Oakland, NJ.

2018 – Robert “Bob” Alex, 92, founded Rolex Fastener Corporation in Connecticut, an aerospace tool company. 

2017 – Martin Alpert, 86, who worked in the Chicago fastener industry for 50+ years, including with XL Screw Corp.

2004 – Gordon Arborak, 68, founder of Pacific Fasteners Inc. in Vancouver, Canada. He and his wife, Evelyn Arborak, founded Pacific in 1972. He acquired the Toronto inventory of ITT Harper when it closed in 1981 and hired its staff to open a branch there. He opened a Seattle warehouse in 1983. He was the 1985-86 president of the Western Association of Fastener Distributors and a member of the National Association of Fastener Distributors and the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association.

2013 – Mark Asher, 101, had owned Accurate Fastener Company in Columbus, OH.

1994 – Jerome Badner. His 40 years in the fastener industry started with Automatic Methods. In his 22 years with Aero Stop Nut, he and Sid Greendorfer, Bob Greendorfer and Leonard Robinowitz built Aero and its sister divisions at Fastener City. He retired as general manager/vice president of Aero Stop Nut in 1993. Badner was active with the National Fastener Distributors Association and Metropolitan Fastener Distributors Association.

2010 – Harry Boyd Baker, 98, had been president of Southern Fasteners & Parts, Southern Industrial Distributors and NuWay. He also had been a homebuilder in Charlotte, NC.

2004 – Arthur D. Bancroft, 75, of Rhode Island, was in the fastener industry for 58 years. He was self-employed with Reminc & Conti Fasteners and had been president of Continental Screw Co. in New Bedford, MA.

2010 – Kent M. Bank, 68, retired CEO and president of Minneapolis Washer & Stamping Inc.

2001 – Raymond D. “Ray” Barker, 64, founded Saturn Fasteners Inc. in Burbank, CA. in 1989.

2017 – Bobby Gwyn Barnhill, 81, intended to be a court reporter but took a different direction when she was asked out for coffee by Jim Barnhill, a fellow University of New Mexico student. In the 1960s, Bobby and Jim began working for his parents’ business – Barnhill Bolt Company Inc. She became the first woman president of the Western Association of Fastener Distributors and served two terms.In 1997, Bobby and Jim were inducted into the NIFS Fastener Hall of Fame. In her 50s, she educated herself on computer technology and helped develop the first computer program being used in the fastener industry.

2007 – James Ray “Jim” Barnhill, 75. After a first career as a teacher and coach in Albuquerque schools, he joined his parents, J.C. & Eleanor Barnhill, at Barnhill Bolt in 1960. He was a board member of the Western Association of Fastener Distributors from 1986 to 1989. He and his wife, Bobby Barnhill, were inducted into the NIFS Hall of Fame in 1997.

2018 – Robert Kenneth Baxter, 70, owned Bax Sales Inc., an Iowa fastener distributorship.

1995 – Joseph J. Beauchamp, 79, was owner and operator of Nationwide Fastener Systems, Rock Island, IL, for 15 years, retiring in 1978. He also had been a trainer for Nationwide Fasteners franchises nationwide and a district manager of A.H. Fasteners of Oak Park, IL.

2023 – James “Jim” Beckstein, 85, started working at Mill Supplies Inc. of Indiana in 1976 and then owned and operated the business from 1978 until his retirement in 2004. He was the 2002 president of the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distribution Association and is a past president of Industrial Distribution Association.

1994 – Richard B. Belford, 72, retired managing director of the Industrial Fasteners Institute. He started with the IFI in 1950 and was managing director from 1982 to 1984. He authored numerous technical papers instructed engineers on using correct fasteners and he led fastener manufacturers to meet new developments in industrial bolting. He served in many capacities with ISO, ANSI, ASTM, ASME and SAE. He received ASTM’s Award of Merit in 1985 for ASTM Committee F-16 leadership and was the principal author of nine standards.

2020 – Rodney Eugene Bell, 74, founder of his Wisconsin fastener business, Arden Specialty Products,

1998 – Willard R. Bell Jr., 71, started in a management training program at Republic Steel Corp.  After 21 years with Republic he left to become vice-president of Metal Source until that company was absorbed by U.S. Steel Supply. He then owned and operated Dyson Company, a fastener firm in Painesville, Ohio, before joining Cleveland City Forge from 1995 until his retirement.

2018 – J. David Beneke, 83, started in the industry with Reynolds Metals Company.  In 1968, he and his father, Chuck “CJ” Beneke, founded Beneke Wire Company.  He was a past president of the Wire Association International.

2014 – Cheryl Elaine Bott Bennett, 67, started in the stainless steel fastener business with Alaskan Copper & Brass and next worked for Coast Industrial Supply (Cisco). With Jerry Lind established  Mt. Hood Fasteners in 1995. She first retired from the fastener industry in 2002. After moving to Boise in 2004, she went back to work for Mt. Hood Fasteners, working from her home until 2012, when she was diagnosed with cancer.

2011 – Peter Berghammer, 51, began his career in the late 1970s with aerospace fastening company Rosan of Newport Beach, CA. Rosan was later acquired by Rexnord, then by Banner Aerospace, and eventually by Fairchild Corp.

2014 – Larry S. Berman, 74, chairperson emeritus of MNP Corporation. He founded MNP in 1970. Berman had been a director of MNP’s parent company, Meridian National Corp. since 1996.

2021 – William “Bill” Bernard, 66, started as  parts manager for a Southern California Utility Trailer and became sales manager at Golden State Fasteners in Whittier.  He was sales manager for Duncan Bolt Company in Santa Fe Springs the last 12 years of his career before retiring in 2016.  He was legally blind for the last 15 years.

2006 – G. Douglas Berry, founder of Advance Components Inc. in 1972.

2015 – Harold W. “Goodie” Best, 70, had been the owner/operator of Best Fastener & Supply of Kansas City, MO.

2001 – Robert “Bob” Boaz, who was the Northwest regional sales manager during many of his 35 years with RB&W Bolt & Nut Co.

2006 – Robert “Bob” Bobier, 85, founder of Columbus, OH-based Mid-State Bolt & Nut Co. in 1946.

2021 – Irene Virginia Borchardt, 97, died August 27, 2021. She was a nurse during WWII and met her husband, Harold John Borchardt, in a hospital during his recovery from injury while serving in the Army.  In 1971, Irene partnered with her husband in starting fastener manufacturer B&B Specialties Inc. After 15 years, they sold B&B to their son Bruce and daughter Krista.

2004 – Heinrich “Henry” Bossard, CEO of Bossard Group, died in a plane crash in New Zealand.
In a 2002 interview with FIN at the headquarters in Switzerland, Henry Bossard explained the company philosophy of “not looking left and right at the competition, we look at the customer. We are thinking of what the customer needs. How can you help customers become more competitive with fasteners?”
Henry Bossard was sixth generation in the company, which the family traces back to silk importing in 1789. Bossard Group considers 1831 the founding date of the hardware business. As CEO, Henry Bossard led a global fastener company with 1,300 employees.

2001 – Peter Bossard, 63, chairman of Bossard Holdings AG and an elected official in Züg, Switzerland, was one of 14 people killed in an armed attack in the parliament building.
In the 170 years of the Bossard family fastener company, in every one of the six generations one of the owners devoted a major portion of time to local and regional politics and public affairs.
A gunman dressed as a police officer went on a rampage in the state parliament building, killing at least 14 people. Swiss police identified the attacker as 57-year-old Friedrich Leibacher, who had a grudge against local officials since a 1998 argument with a bus driver. Leibacher also shot himself and left a suicide note, Swiss officials said.

1996 – Robert H. “Bob” Bower, 68, co-founder and president of S&B Tech Sales Inc. After 16 years as a manufacturers rep for several companies he founded S&B with Frank Sheehan in 1972 and they remained partners for 24 years.

2015 – Thomas R. Boyd, 91, inventor of the Boyd Bolt. He earned a mechanical engineering degree from Bradley University and completed graduate work at UCLA and Harvard.  With partners, he founded Tridair Industries, which grew to over 400 employees manufacturing aerospace products for NASA missions and the Concorde.  He patented the Boyd Bolt fastener mentioned on live television coverage of Apollo 12 on November 19, 1969.  Astronaut Alan Bean said, “Houston, you can log me for my first Boyd Bolt on the Moon” prompting Walter Cronkite to scramble to explain both fastener and inventor. The Boyd Bolt also was in a comedic cameo in a scene in the HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon.”

2015 – James F. Braden, 83, was co-author of “Mechanical Fastening of Plastics” and a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Fastener Standards Committee.

2012 – Irving W. Bradley, 80, of Urbandale, IA, founded Bradley Fastener & Supply Inc.

1990 – Arthur R. Breed, former vice president of Lamson & Sessions Co. He authored numerous technical articles, held patents in the U.S. and Europe and was active with ISO, ASTM, ANSI, ASME and SAE.

2010 – William J. Brennan Sr., who founded W.J. Brennan Company in 1958, which became Brennan Tools & Fastening Systems. He was one of 18 founding members of the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association in 1976 and a board member of the Associated General Contractors.

2013 – Franklin Stevens Briles, 92, was a pioneer in the U.S. and global aerospace fastener industry. He retired from Briles Rivet at the age of 82. His businesses included Briles Mfg., Missilcraft, Briles Rivet and Briles Palm Farm.

2010 – Donald “Don” Broehm, 80. He had been CEO of Mid-State Bolt & Nut Co. for more than 20 years and was the 1976-77 president of the National Fastener Distributors Association.

2017 – Courtney D. “Denny” Brown, 82, owned and operated Custom Fastener Machine in Champion, OH for 15 years. He had been a machinist/millwright with the Republic Steel Corp. for 30 years plus and also taught a machinist class at the Trumbull Career & Technical Center.

1994 – Max L. Brown, 97, owned Max L. Brown Hardware Co. of Carteret, NJ, for most of his life.

2002 – Robert Brown, 80, retired president of Chicago Rivet & Machine Co. He joined the company in 1960 and his roles included manager, treasurer and CFO before being named president in 1977.

2013 – Robert E. “Bob” Brynolf, 61, CEO of Brynolf Manufacturing Inc. and former owner of Rebco Fasteners.
He co-founded Brynolf Manufacturing with his brother, Dan Brynolf, in a 17,000 sq ft plant in Loves Park, IL, in 2000. The company moved to a 40,000 sq ft plant in Rockford in 2004 and expanded to a 116,000 sq ft facility in Rockford in 2012.

2001 – Dan C. Burch, founder of Fastco Threaded Products Inc. in 1984 in Columbia, SC. He added branches in South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Alabama and Mexico.

2019 – John. T. “Jack” Butcher Jr., 79, founder of Industrial Bolt & Supply Inc. in Auburn, Washington.
With his wife, Linda Butcher, started the distributorship in 1977, and managed it for 30 years. The company grew from two employees to 40 employees with salespeople in seven Western states.
He had been on the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association board. He retired in 2007 and sold the business to his children: daughter Michelle St. John, is IBS president and was the 2018 STAFDA president; and son, Derek Butcher, is CEO.
As a Rotary Club member and president he participated in polio eradication efforts in Ethiopia, immunizing children – a cause that was dear to his heart, as he had polio as a child.  

2015 – Michael Caesar, 55, started with Barbarotto International Machinery in 1982, shortly after Fred Barbarotto started the fastener machinery company.
“Over the years, he became a highly respected salesman for Barbarotto, and was universally liked by all the customers who worked with him. Mike was not only knowledgeable about the equipment and capabilities, but he was always good for a laugh, as well!” according to a company statement.

2001 – Harriet Callahan, 68, retired business manager of Fastener Industry News. She began working with Dick Callahan in 1974 on Wire Industry News and Wire Technology magazine during the mid-’70s. After leaving the magazine the Callahans continued to publish WIN and launched FIN in 1979. In 1980 they founded the New England Wire & Cable Club. Dick was editor and publisher, and Harriet handled the behind-the-scenes day-to-day operations for the businesses.

2001 – Richard J. “Dick”  Callahan, 73, the founder, first editor and publisher of Fastener Industry News. He interned at the Chicago Tribune while attending college and started with McGraw Hill as an editor of Chemical Week. He was an editor for American Metals Market and the founding editor of 33 Magazine for steel producers. In the early 1970s, Callahan became editor of Wire & Wire Products. In 1973, when the magazine was acquired and merged with Wire Journal by the Wire Association International, Callahan started Wire Technology with Hale Publishing. He co-owned the magazine with Ray Zirkle and Lew Billingslea. While editing Wire Technology, Dick started Wire Industry News in 1973 as an independent publication. He also founded the Directory of Wire Companies and Rod, Wire & Fastener magazine. Callahan received the Wire Association’s Mordica Award, an honorary lifetime achievement award by the Wire & Cable Clubs of America and U.S. Steel’s “Wise Owl” award.

2011 – Edith Cameron, 92. In 1937 Cameron took a summer job with Anti-Corrosive Metal Products Co. in Castleton, NY, for $12 per 5 1/2-day week. By 1939 she was firmly established in the fastener industry as executive secretary to Anti-Corrosive president Edmund Bainbridge and the summer job became a 56-year career.
In a 2008 interview with GlobalFastenerNews.com marking her 90th birthday, she recalled making drawings of fasteners for customers by tracing original prints on onionskin paper held up to a window for light.
During World War II there was no record of what was in stock or where in the warehouse it was located, Cameron said.
“You merely picked up the customer’s order and went searching. It was an excellent way to learn what the product looked like,” she explained in her 1993 NIFS Hall of Fame induction speech.
In 1956 Cameron left Anti-Corrosive with president Jerry Kapner to start Albany Products in Norwalk, CT. She was involved in purchasing and sales, secretarial duties and training those who later rose in the industry.
After making sales calls on the West Coast in 1962 with San Francisco-based sales rep Everett Appleton, Cameron got Albany to add San Carlos, CA, and Dallas branches to its Boston and Chicago sites.
In 1980 Cameron joined Allied Stainless and worked until the company moved to Wisconsin. Then she worked from home for T.A.&D.A. Troy Co. until 1991, when she joined AllMetal. She retired in 1993.
Cameron told FIN in 2008 that throughout her career she never found being a woman to be a problem. Though she signed business letters “E.H. Cameron” so no one would know her gender, she “never found being a woman was rough. I had to perform and do a good job and I was accepted.”

2011 – Lynn E. Carmack, 77,  started his career with Triplett Corp. and then became a salesman for S&B Fasteners before starting his own company, Always Best Fasteners, in Massillon, OH. He was a long time member of the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association. He retired in 2009.

2020 – David Joel Carpenter, 85  worked for 50 years at Solon Manufacturing Company of Chardon, OH, where he became CEO.  His father, Joel Carpenter, was a founding member of Solon.

2022 – John Adams Carson III, 61, general manager of Carson’s Nut, Bolt & Tool Inc. of South Carolina.

2011 – Jack Edward Carter, 73, founder and owner of Industrial Products Company of Lynchburg, VA.

2003 – Steve Cearlock, 45. He started in the fastener business in 1978 with ITW Shakeproof. He joined Southern Fastening Systems in 1989 as manager of manufacturing engineers. He and two other ex-Southern employees started Southern Screw Products in 1990 after Southern Fastening broke up. He held positions of vice president and president of Southern Screw until it closed in 1999.

2014 – Christopher George “Chris” Cellary, 59, and his brother, Stephen Cellary,  co-owned Ford Fasteners Inc. – the fastener manufacturing company founded by their father, George Cellary.
He was a member of the Southeastern Fastener Association, Metropolitan Fastener Distributors and New England Fastener Distributor Association.
In college he was recruited as a punter for the University of South Carolina football team and as an adult he was a coach for local sports teams.

2004 – George Cellary, 84, founder of Ford Fasteners in New Jersey.

2002 – Joseph J. Chase, president of Chase Fasteners Inc.. The fastener manufacturing company was founded as Chase & Chudik in 1952.

1997 – Raymond Claeys, 81, retired vice president and purchasing manager of Wayne Bolt & Nut. He started his fastener career as a purchasing agent for Tri-West Products Co. (which became Purchased Parts Corp.) in 1951 and co-founded Wayne Bolt in 1959.

2005 – Harley Lloyd Clevenger, 63. He spent his entire career in fasteners, starting with Lamson & Sessions and for the last 26 years as a manufacturers rep working in the Carolinas, Virginia and West Virginia. He was president of the Southeastern Fastener Association in 1988.

2019 – Arnold R. “Arnie” Craven Jr., 65, president of Phillips Fasteners. Most of his career was in manufacturing and selling exterior wood screws. After obtaining three patents for Deck Mate screws he built a factory in Taiwan.

2006 – Donald Coar, a 30-year veteran of the fastener industry. He founded Assertive Fastener Service, a Naples, FL-based manufacturer’s rep, 20 years ago with his wife, Patricia.

2021 – Irvin Cohen, 95, was founder of Eastern Machine Products Inc., a metal stamping and fabricating business, and Construction Fasteners Inc., an industrial fastener manufacturer based in Wyomissing, PA.

2010 –Eric Marbe Cohn, 88, who started importing fasteners in 1953. He retired from his fulltime role as president of Allied International in 1986 when he sold his shares to Kay Corporation. In retirement he operated a telephone business and traded in fasteners.
Allied International, American Eagle International, Allied Stainless, Allied Surplus and Allied Specials were successor companies to Northern Screw Corporation and Northern Trading Company, which were founded in 1955.
Allied eventually was headquartered in Rye, NY, and grew to have facilities in Stamford, CT; Los Angeles; Tulsa; Denver; Charlotte and Port Newark.
In a 1995 presentation to the Western Association of Fastener Distributors, Cohn recalled that in 1955 Reynolds was importing fasteners from Holland; GKN and H.J. Kennedy from England; Norman Sackheim from Germany and Allied from Belgium.
“In the late ‘50s the – the domestic manufacturers who had been buying abroad to supplement their capacity – told the foreigners, ‘We don’t need you anymore’,” Cohn recalled. “That was a gross mistake because the foreigners liked our business. Importers got into it to fill this void.”
Because of pressure against foreign competition, “a lot of distributors wanted me to deliver at night so that domestic manufacturers wouldn’t see what they were doing.”
In the early days importing was mostly low-end fasteners “that the domestic manufacturers did not even want to make,” Cohn once said. He cited 1/4-20 x 1/2 license plate bolts with washer head and “any cheap nut” as an example.
Cohn blamed cutbacks under the Reagan Administration for imported fastener quality problems. “The crooks quickly saw that the government did not have the manpower to enforce its own regulations. In the 1950’s every tenth case of bolts was checked by a U.S. examiner,” Cohn recalled. “By the 1990s they checked some shipments at the pier when they could.”
He testified at a U.S. House of Representatives Ways & Means Committee hearing on tariffs in 1955 and 1975.
“A lot of interesting things came out of the hearings. For example, there was an Australian wood screw manufacturer who decided that if he came to the United States he could sell wood screws,” Cohn remembered. “So he announced that he was coming and the domestic industry met him on the dock, bought his plant an he went home.”
The National Fastener Distributors Association and the Western Association of Fastener Distributors honored him with life memberships.

2014– James O. Collingwood,  70, co-founder of Hercules Fasteners Inc. of Brook Park, OH.

2013 – Randy Colwell, 69, past manager of Olander Fasteners Inc.

2013 – John Henry Compall Sr., 74, of Chicago, co-founder of Master Fastener.

2015 – Frank Condon, 85, was of founder and owner of Hillsdale Terminal in Michigan. He retired in 2000. His career also included Alcoa, Owens Illinois, Corning and Vaco Products.

1995 – Dana Cooper, 24, and Christopher Cooper II, 2, the wife and son of an employee for a fastener distributor, were among the 166 victims of the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
A.C. Cooper, 24, a buyer for J&E Supply, was at work when the explosion occurred. He had dropped his wife and son off at the America’s Kids day care center in the federal building before going to work.
Dana Cooper had been the director of America’s Kids for three weeks. She started working in day care while a high-school student and was an early childhood education major at the University of Central Oklahoma.

2014 – Moses Efren Cordova, 84, began his career as an inventory clerk in the fastener division of Triangle Steel & Supply and rose to manager of seven branches.  After 15 years with Triangle, he founded Circle Bolt and then Cordova Bolt Inc. He was the 1990-91 president of the Western Association of Fastener Distributors.

2022 – Robert Dixon Cox, 87. A former Army buddy offered him a job with a bolt and nut company and he became a manager in cities across the South, including Columbia, SC and New Orleans. At the age of 45, with business partners he started Fastener Service Inc. in Dothan, AL. 

2012 – Mark Manley “Mike” Crandall, 75, worked for various Chattanooga fastener companies until he opened Bolts & Nuts Inc. in 1976. He retired in 2006.

2018 – Arvilla Vosler Credit, 92, was co-founder of Harmco Fastener Company along with her husband William Harmon Credit.

2013 – William Harman “Harm” Credit, 90. Harm and Arvilla Credit started Harmco Fastener Company in 1967 from their Penfield, NY, basement and grew the upstate New York distributorship to have branches in Rochester and Buffalo. 

2009 – Michael J. “Mike” Crumsho, 73, started with Wynne Bolt Co. and founded Jewel Fastener Co. in Bellmawr, PA.

2009 – Bill Dailey, 72, metallurgist and vice president of quality for Michigan Wire Processing.

2009 – Joseph F. Dalton, 63,  began his fastener career in Pittsburgh. In 1978 he founded Building Fasteners Inc. in Newark, DE, and was president for 30 years. 

2017 – William E. Damm, 76, founder of Modern Fasteners Inc. of Pennsylvania in 1970.

2013 – Harold Virgil Davidson, 88, retired president and CEO of Fasteners & Fire Equipment of Alaska. In 1969 he moved to Alaska and started the company to sell and service fire extinguishers along the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. He sold Fasteners & Fire Equipment to Michael Bateman in 1991.

2004 – Frank Dellorso, 85, chairman and founder of Deco Products Inc. He started in fasteners at Allen Manufacturing in Bloomfield, CT, where he worked for 23 years developing screw machined, socked screw and fastener specials. In 1965, he founded East Hartford, CT-based Deco Products, specializing in print parts and specials.

2022 – Frank Deppe, 98, started Fasteners Inc. of Grand Rapids, MI. He was a founder and the 1979 president of the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association.

1996 – Ken Diamond, 43, import specialist for Artmark Products. His fastener career also included Gardenbolt International, Uneeda Bolt and Fehr Brothers.

1996 – Kenneth R. Dickson, 52, executive vice president of the National Fastener Distributors Association since 1990. He served on the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors board and was chair of its Association Executive Council.

2014 – Frank Edward “Duke” Diebold, 73, started his career as assistant golf pro, but due to a growing family he became a sales rep for Threaded Products. He went on to open D-Bolt Co. in an unheated church basement and grew it to a major Western Pennsylvania distributorship.

2012 – John D. DiFilippo Sr., 60, who was in sales for 30 years and for the last six years  worked as a sales manager for Rotor Clip Company.

2010 –James “Jim” Dill, 91, former RB&W executive.

2013 – Raymond L. “Ray” Doane started in the fastener industry in 1963 with Lamson & Sessions. He was last with Ababa Bolt as sales & marketing manager. Previously he held management positions with Bonanza Nut & Bolt, Bossard USA, Porteous Fastener Co. and RB&W Corporation.

2018 – Robert Glenn “Bob” Dorris, 71, founded Action Bolt & Screw Corporation in Nashville, TN.

2014 – Geoffrey Dreger, 81, founder of Intools Group of Companies. His fastener experience included 1952-1979 with P.L. Robertson in Ontario, vice president and director of research and development; 1980 to 2005, president and CEO of Intools. In 1971 he invented the Scrulox 8 Driver recess (Patent 3,972,083) and in 1991 the Quadrex Driver recess (Patent 5,020,954).
He had been president of the International Fastener Machinery & Suppliers Association.

2010 –Joseph R. Dudley, 85, a sales engineer for Nylok Fasteners Corporation for 25 years. He also had worked with Parker Hannifin Corporation.

1998 – David Duncan, 81, founded Duncan Bolt Company in Southern California in 1953 and sold the distributorship in 1988 to Andy Cohn & Virginia Cohn.

2021 – Harry William Eberle III, 79, a home builder who designed and patented a deck fastener. He was in some form of construction his entire adult life starting in a cabinet shop; then in pre-cast concrete; before forming Eberle Builders Inc. in 1984.  The Eb-Ty invisible hidden deck fastener is still being used in multiple countries. 

1999 – Garfield James “Gar Sr” Edmonds Jr., 70, co-founder and former partner in B&G Manufacturing and Greenbay Supply. He founded B&G with his brother, Dick Edmonds.

2023 – Garfield “Gar” Edmonds III, 72, spent his career manufacturing and distributing fasteners, growing Houston-based Alloy & Stainless Fasteners to locations in Texas, Pennsylvania, Oregon, California and The Netherlands.

1992 – Robert Eitner, 67, of Union, NJ, started Trans National Fabricators, a cold heading manufacturer, in 1955 after working for Jacobson Mfg.

2020 – Robert Frederick Eitner Jr., 70, worked in fastener industry for 40 years, including for his father’s Trans National Fabricators and owning Advantage Fastener of New Jersey.

1983 – Ruby Engleson, 70, president of Esco Fasteners Co. Inc., Oceanside, NY. He started in the fastener business selling surplus and built his company into a major distributorship.

2011 – Judith “Judy” Ericson, 66, started her fastener career in the mid-1970s at F&C Sales and retired from Irvine, CA-based All-Spec Fasteners in 2009. She served on the Los Angeles Fastener Association board from 1989 to 1992.

1986 – Paul V. Ewing, 70, retired founder of National Set Screw Corp. in Plymouth, MI, and a pioneer in the cold forging metal manufacturing industry. He was first employed in the fastener industry about 1941 by Ajax Bolt & Screw Co. in Detroit.
Henry Wojcik of Wayne Bolt & Nut recalled that with the end of World War II, Ewing saw a future in sales and became an outside salesman.
“Armed with a box of cigars, an order pad, positive attitude and a desire to meet the many people he knew on the phone but had never met, he set out to beat the bushes, chase smokestacks and build a reputation for himself and his company,” Wojcik wrote to FIN. “He did well as a young man, was accepted by senior buyers who loved his wit, aggressive attitude and the zest to serve his customers.”
In 1948 he became Ajax sales manager.
In 1951 he founded Tri-West Products in Detroit, with screw machines and as a fastener distributor. Tri-West acquired an interest in fastener and rod headed product manufacturer National Cold Forging Corp. In 1954 he purchased the controlling interest in National Cold Forging and expanded the company from a regional supplier to the Midwest and Canada. In 1971 National Cold Forging was dissolved and with his sons he established National Set Screw Corp.

2006 – George Norman “Norm” Falkner, 89, was a founding partner of fastener distributor FTR in Los Angeles after starting his career with Central Screw Products.

2022 –  Donald W. Farmer, 94, founder of Interstate Bolt of Shrewsbury, MA. He was a past president of the New England Fastener Distributors Association.

2005 – Peter Femiak, 58, vice president for sales & marketing at ADP Rivet. He also was with Emhart Fasteners/Black & Decker for 20 years. He was active in the National Fastener Distributors Association, Industrial Distributors Association and was on the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association manufacturers liaison committee.

2010 – Harold Edgar Fenton, 90, was general manager of Stelco Fastener & Forging from 1939 to 1985.

2002 – Jeffery T. Ferry, 43, founder and president of Telefast Industries and 1stFastener.com. He founded Telefast in 1986 and the Internet trading portal in 2000. He was the Industrial Fasteners Institute Division I / Industrial Products chair and was active in the National Fastener Distributors Association.
He was fourth generation in the fastener industry. His great-grandfather, Thomas Ferry, founded Ferry Cap & Set Screw; his grandfather, Edward Ferry, founded E.W. Ferry Screw Products; and his father, William Ferry, started Ferry Brothers.

1993 – Thomas J. Ferry, former president of E.W. Ferry Screw Products Co. until it was sold in the mid-1980s. He was the third generation of his family to operate an industrial fastener company in Cleveland. His grandfather, Thomas Ferry, founded Ferry Cap & Screw Co. in 1907. His father left Ferry Cap in 1933 to start E.W. Ferry Co.

1991 – Charles Fillipone, founder of Southwest Fastener Distribution Company in Phoenix. He started in fasteners in 1972 as marketing manager for SPS Technologies’ international operations. In 1975 he moved to England to work in SPS’ European, Mid-East and African operations. In 1979 he returned to the U.S. as president of the Latin American and Far East operations. In 1982 he was named president of the Unbrako Division/North America. He left SPS in 1989 to start Southwest in 1990.

1999 – Bernie Finder, spent more than 50 years in the fastener industry. He started with the George K. Garret Company in 1946. He founded B. Finder Associates, a manufacturers rep firm, in 1969.

2022 – William John “Bill” Firehouse started in the fastener industry in 1976 at age 16 as a temp worker in the Star Stainless Screw Company warehouse. Over the next 46 years he held roles of warehouse foreman, salesman, distribution manager, New Jersey branch manager and director of operations.  He was inducted into the Metropolitan Fastener Distributors Association Hall of Fame in 2017.

1991 – James A. “Jimmy” Fitzgerald, 69, a founding partner of Delta Bolt Corp. of Baton Rouge., LA, and 1981-82 president of the National Fastener Distributors Association. After World War II he and his father opened Gulf States Screw Products in New Orleans, which was sold to U.S. Pipe & Foundry in the late 1960s. He and Frank Griffin Jr. opened Delta Bolt in 1974. He retired in 1989.

2006 – David Flood, 54, ITW executive vice president. He joined ITW in 1976 as a sales engineer for ITW Fastex. In 1982 he became vice president and general manager of ITW Nexus.

2012 – Robert J. “Bob” Fiorentino, 82, invented high tensile strength fasteners for industrial applications and authored six patents. He held a bachelor of engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and master of metallurgical engineering from Ohio State University. He was employed by Battelle Memorial Institute for 40 years. He was active in SME, ASM and ASME.

2020 –  John F. Firlik Jr., automation specialist for Spirol International.

2012 – Stephen Anthony Frantz, 74, a co-partner in establishing Grand Rapids, MI-based fastener manufacturer Fastco Industries. His machinery career began with General Motors’ Diesel Division.

2006 – J. Joseph Fuller, 76, a founding member of the NFDA and its first associate chairman. He began his fastener career as a salesman with Lamson & Sessions subsidiary, Full Line Fasteners in 1969.
In 1974 he founded Joseph Fuller Co. in Chicago, an industrial fastener supplier that grew to five branch warehouses in the U.S. He was a partner in four other fastener distribution businesses in the Midwest. He came out of retirement to head the Hunter-Stevens Co., a specialty socket screw manufacturer.

2016  – Michael A. Gaffney, 80, founded Gaffney Bolt Company in 1974. He started in fasteners in 1958 with Rockford Bolt & Steel Co, which was acquired by Keystone Industries in 1969. He then became president of Keystone Railway Equipment until 1973.

2002 – Warren Gaughan, 79, office manager and purchasing agent for The Rule Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He joined Rule in 1970 and never retired.

2018 – Marilu R. George, 72, a partner in Fastener Solutions Inc.

2022 – Mark J. Georgia, 64, president and co-owner of Fascomp Electronic Hardware.

2012 – John Gideon, 68, founder of rep agency Merit Sales. He and his family represented Chicago Hardware for more than 40 years.

1988 – Harry M. Glaeser, a veteran of 38 years in the fastener industry. Founded BARCAR Fastening Products and Keystone Screw Co., both of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.

2012 – Joseph W. Godleski, 69, died when he became stranded in his car in floodwaters caused by Hurricane Sandy. Prior to retiring, he worked for several fastener companies, including Bell Fasteners in Paramus, NJ; the Afcom division of New York Fasteners in Florida; and Accurate Precision Fasteners in New Jersey. His wife of 48 years, Barbara Godleski, works at B/E Aerospace.

2021 – Robert Benhoff “Bob” Gogel, 78, began during high school with his father’s fastener and industrial supply business, Walter Gogel Company.  He was president from 1986 until selling the company in 2006.

1983 – Irwin Goldhart, 72, chairman of Russell, Burdsall & Ward since 1981, when a majority of stock was purchased his Goldhart’s Automotive Hardware Ltd. Automotive Hardware became the largest fastener group in North America.

2002 – Richard W. Goodby, president of Sanson and Rowland, a Philadelphia distributorship founded in 1890.

2017 – George John Grabner, 98. His career included chairman and CEO of The Weatherhead Company; chairman and CEO of Lamson & Sessions Company; and board member of multiple companies, including Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co. Inc.
He was the 1976-77 Industrial Fasteners Institute chairman and in 2011 received the IFI’s Soaring Eagle Award.
He was president of his class and a hockey player at Western Reserve University and attended Harvard Business School.

2020 – Tim Graham, 60, managing director of Archerdale Ltd, died of Covid-19. Graham joined Archerdale in 1993 and became MD in 2019.

2021 – Barry Michael Grenier, 76, came from a family of salesmen and in 1968 entered the fastener industry in sales for Industrial Fasteners. In 1980, he started Pro-Stainless Inc in San Jose, CA.

2020 – John Joseph Grey, 77, was a fastener engineer with Ohio Nut & Bolt and Bowman Distribution and was president of Fastener Consulting Services.  He conducted fastener training courses for fastener associations.

1996 – Melvin R. Green, 72, chairman of the Fastener Advisory Committee. His career included being deputy director of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

1982 – Sid Greendorfer, 68. After 10 years as a credit reporter for Dun & Bradstreet, he was working part-time liquidating government surplus stocks after World War II. The stocks included fasteners which he peddled door-to-door from the back of a truck. He soon formed Industrial Bolt L& Nut Co. in Newark, NJ. He then founded Aero Stop Nut as a self-locking nut distributor for Britain’s Firth Cleveland. He also started the Handi-Man and Cap Screw & Nut divisions of Fastener City. His companies became a subsidiary of HMW Industries Inc. in 1976.

2009 – Jerry Gudes, 54, co-owner of Metro Bolt & Fastener Co. As a CPA he was hired by Means Stamping of Saginaw, MI, where he met steel buyer Steve Chapman and together they acquired Metro Bolt in 1985 and relocated it from Detroit to Redford, MI.

2010 – Paul A. Gustafson, 68, started as a salesman and rose through the managerial ranks at Emhart Corporation. In 1979, he was named general manager of Emhart Corporation’s Pop Fastener Division. Next he moved to Hong Kong to become vice president for Pacific Rim operations.
In 1988, he became Emhart’s vice president for European Operations based in Birmingham, England. When Emhart was acquired by Black & Decker, he became executive vice president and CEO of Emhart Teknologies.
He retired in 2007.
Gustafson sought to inspire creativity in American engineers through the annual “Create the Future Design Contest,” an award he sponsored through Emhart Teknologies for innovative industrial design concepts.

2012 – Daniel F. Guziec, 48, started his fastener career with Fasco Inc. in Alsip, IL, as an outside account manager. Later he was with Anixter Aerospace and was national account manager at Gexpro.

2020 – Neil Hadfield, 75, was co-founder of Western Pacific Data Systems in 1979, which became Faspac Fastener Solutions.  In 1981 co-founders Margaret Jackson and Hadfield acquired the fastener distribution software developer from co-founders Bill Vollmer and Dennis Marteeny and went on to sell 500 systems in the next 22 years.  Faspac was sold to Prophet 21 in 2003.

2016 – Josephy W. “Skinny” Haenelt, 89, founded Gulf Coast Fasteners in 1971.

2007 – Daniel P. Haerther, 82, founder, chairman and owner of fastener manufacturer Semblex Corporation for 39 years.  He was active in the Industrial Fasteners Institute.

1989 – H. Thomas Hallowell Jr., 81. He was named president of Standard Pressed Steel Co. in 1981 and chairman in 1963.  When he retired as chairman emeritus of SPS Technologies in 1989, it marked the end of three generations of continuous presence of the Hallowell family.

2002 – Joel D. Hammer, 65.  He started in the fastener industry at age 16, working for his uncle, Dudley Leavitt, at Cap Screw & Nut Company of America.  After his uncle’s death, Hammer worked for several fastener companies in New York and Chicago.  Infasco hired him in the late 1960s as an outside salesperson in Illinois and he soon expanded his territory to neighboring states.  He founded J. Hammer & Associates in the early 1970s and worked closely with Infasco, developing a stocking program, and he moved several times to larger warehouses and added six U.S. locations.  He acquired J. Hammer/Distributor Sales in 1998.

2017 – William Jerry Hancock, 83. During his fastener career he owned Nut & Bolt House of Greenville, SC, Metric America, Monster Metric and Mega Metric.  He also managed for Bossard Group and retired as a consultant for Lindstrom Metric.  He was inducted into the NIFMSE Hall of Fame in 2004.

2006: Sid Hardie, 71. He became vice president and general manager of The House of Threads in 1966 and worked there for two decades.  He returned in 1993 and recently retired. Hardie was the 1977-78 president and a life member of the National Fastener Distributors Association.

2022 – Robert J. Harris, 75.  In 1995 he became the sixth managing director of the Industrial Fasteners Institute and by the time he retired in 2017 he was longest to serve in the role.

2013 – Mary A. Hayward, 94.  She and her husband, the late James E. Hayward, opened several fastener businesses in Chattanooga, TN, and they ran Hayward Bolt & Specialty Company for 33 years.  She retired in 2008 at age 89.

2012 – Robert T. Hearn, 71, for 20 years was an owner/partner with John Macartney of RJ Fasteners Company of Hatfield, PA.

2014 – Preston Hebert, 65, co-founder with Stuart Bright of Diamond Bolt Company in 1987.  He had been on the Southwestern Fastener Association board.

1983 – Michael Hecht, president of Commercial Fasteners, Hauppauge, Long Island, New York, and son of founder Al Hecht, died when a forklift he was riding overturned in the warehouse.

1983 – Al Hecht, retired founder of Commercial Fasteners, Hauppauge Long Island, New York.  He was a founder and past president of the Metropolitan Fastener Distributors Association and past president of the Hardware Square Club of New York.  The senior Hecht had returned from semi-retirement after his son died in a forklift accident (see Michael Hecht) and within two weeks died of a heart attack.

1994 – Leonard “Lenny” Heinberg, who was with New York Fasteners (NYF Corp) for 30 years.

2011 – Darrell Leon Henry, 72, started in fasteners as a sales representative.  From the mid-1970s to 1999 he was a co-owner of Stauffer Supply, a fastener distributorship in Portland, OR.

2012 – Donald W. “Don” Heppes, 72, is the only person to head both the Industrial Fasteners Institute and the National Fastener Distributors Association. Heppes was 2001-02 NFDA president and the 1986-87 chairman of the IFI.
He started his fastener career in 1974 with Times Screw in Rockford, IL. From 1976 to 1992 he worked for Milwaukee-based Medalist Industries. In 1992 Heppes bought Pacific Fasteners, which he sold in 2006 to Bamal Corp. based in Sidney, OH.

1989 – Arnold Herman of Chicago-based Komar Screw Corp. He started in fasteners in 1962 with Accurate Threaded Fasteners. He also was with Prairie States and Armour.

1988 – Robert “Bob” Herman, vice president and general manager of Jaques Fastener Co., Avon, MA. He began his fastener career after World War II with Edgecomb Steel Fastener Corp. He was one of the founders of the New England Fastener Association and had been secretary and president.

2008 – Irv Hertzberg, 90, founder of Cold Header Machine Corporation in 1969. His fastener career included being vice president of Judson L. Thomson Manufacturing Company of Waltham, MA., and U.S. director of Hanwa American Corporation of Japan. With CHMC he was the first to import fastener manufacturing machinery from Ayase, Kyoei, Towa, Tanisaka and Sanritsu.

2011 – John Hessel, 73, chairman of Whitton Supply Co. of Oklahoma City. His career started as an outside salesman for Whitton Supply and 1962 he acquired the distributorship from Ray Whitton, who had founded the company in 1945. Hessel acquired AM Supply in 1982 and Contractors Supply in 1990.  He formed Hessel Holding Co. in 1984.
He had been treasurer and chairman of Evergreen Marketing Group and a Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association board member.

2010 – Ellen Hiecke, 66, sales manager for Aerospace Nylok.

2014 – Jeffrey C. Higgins, 49, owner of Mid-Ohio Fastener & Supply Company. He also was a custom haymaker and member of the Morrow County Cattleman’s Association.

2020 – John Kenneth “Ken” Hinson, 68, started with Century Fasteners Corp. in Charlotte in 1978.  In 1985 he opened a Century branch in Columbia, SC.  He continued as branch manager even after becoming a double amputee.  He retired in 2019.

2011 – Robert J. “Bob” Hoffman, 86, owner and president of Hoffman Strapping & Fastening. The Chicago native moved to Alaska in 1949 and started a taxi company. In 1969 he started Duo-Fast Alaska.

2000 – Colman M. “Coley” Howton, 81, founded Talma Fastener Corp. and was president until he retired in 1990.

2011 – William D. “Bill” Hylwa, 57, served as applications engineer for Industrial Rivet & Fastener Co. A 40-year fastener industry veteran, he was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

1989 – Joseph Hoyt, founder of Hoyt Fasteners of Niles, IL, and one of the founding members of the Chicago Bolt, Nut & Screw Association. His 52 year fastener career began at Stronghold Screw Co. in Chicago, where he was a sales representative until he enter the U.S. Army during World War II. After the military Hoyt was with Accurate Threaded Fasteners as vice president for 18 before staring Hoyt Fasteners.

2012 – Clinton F. “Clint” Ivins Jr., 90, owner, president and chairman of Mead Supply Inc. in Buffalo, NY, for 32 years. He was one of the STAFDA founders.

2011 – Mary Frances “Fran” Jacoby, 76, had been president of F.J. Sales Inc. and she retired in 2005 from the Pac-Fas division of Big H Corporation. She was the 1984 president of the Southwestern Fastener Association.

2014 – Jack Jahntz, the first president of the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Association and one of 18 charter members, died at 85.  He started with Great Western Steel Company and joined Wisconsin-based L.W. Meyer & Son Inc. in the early 1960s. He retired in 1996 as partner, president and CEO.

2021 – Judith Carolyn Nicholson (Judy) Jandl, 79, had a 50-year fastener career, including being president of Lone Star Screw Co. and starting Sigma Fasteners Inc. in 2004.

2013 – Charles B. “Chuck” Jenefsky, 84, owned Industrial Bolt & Screw Supply in Tucson, AZ, for more than 20 years and was the 1984-85 president of the Western Association of Fastener Distributors.

1999 – David Johns, CEO of MidWest Fabricating and the 1993-94 chairman of the Industrial Fasteners Institute. He held a degree in mechanical engineering and was an officer in several companies and partner in an industrial development company.

2009 – Arvid William “Bill” Johnson, 81. He had been a partner in the Frank J. Brady & Associates sales agency and later formed AWJ & Associates, where he developed automotive accounts for Specialty Screw Corporation of Rockford, IL. In 1975 he became president and owner of Specialty Screw. He retired in 2000.

2022 – Edward Johnson, 88, started Johnson American Fastener Company of Norristown, PA, from the trunk of his car in the 1960s.  He was a founder and 10-year board member of the Mid-Atlantic Fastener Distributor Association.

2017 – Rennie Wendell Johnson, 88. With his wife, Doris Johnson, they founded Vancouver Bolt & Supply Inc. in 1979. He started in the fastener industry at Tacoma Screw Products in 1963. He was the 1996-97 president of the Western Association of Fastener Distributors.

2012 – William A. Johnson, 80, CEO of Johnson Fastener Corp. He was a football coach for 32 years at Canisius High School in Buffalo, NY. Johnson Fastener is an industrial supply firm founded in 1956 by William’s father.

2010 – Jim Johnston, 60, executive vice president of Triangle Fastener Corp. He held multiple roles during his 33 years with Triangle.in Pittsburgh, PA.

2008 – Edwin Carpenter Jones Jr., 63, owner of Coastal Fasteners & Supply Inc. of Myrtle Beach, SC.

1994 – Ron Jones, 56. He started in fasteners with H.M. Harper Corp. and opened Coast Nut & Bolt with Larry Craig in 1974. In recent years he operated California Bolt.

2015 – John Arthur Jukes, 84, mechanical engineer, founder of thread repair system Time-Sert and owner of Time Fastener Co.

1994 – Lambert “Bert” Kaspers, 75, chief elected officer of the Industrial Fasteners Institute from 1974 to 1976. He held executive positions in fastener manufacturing starting in 1945 until retiring as vice president of Key International Manufacturing Inc. in 1985.

2014 – Richard William “Dick” Kerr, 88, chairman of fastener manufacturer Kerr Lakeside Inc. of Ohio. He was in the second of three generations to lead Kerr Lakeside – founded in 1948 by Charles L. Kerr and subsequently headed by third generation president Charles L. Kerr II.

2020 – Howard Charles King, 80, was with Kendale Industries for 40 years.  He had been president of the North Coast Fastener Association and member of the NCFA Hall of Fame.

2008 – Mel Kirsner, 77, founder of Pell-Mell Supply and Mel’s Fastener Museum.
Kirsner started in the industry in 1958 working for his grandfather at Reliable Pipe, which was a distributor for Bethlehem Steel and Russell Bolt Manufacturing.
In 1962 Kirsner became a salesperson for Gould Hardware & Machinery.
In 1963 he sold his house to raise $9,000 to start Pell Mell.
During his career Kirsner became a partner in Fresno Bolt, Nevada Bolt & Nut, Non Ferrous Mfg., Bolt & Nut Export, Action Valve & Fitting and Centennial Fastener.
He was a founding member of the Western Association of Fastener Distributors and had been a member of National Fastener Distributors Association. Kirsner was inducted into the NIFS Hall of Fame in 2000.
In retirement, Kirsner was a part-time curator for his fastener museum. The Southern California fires destroyed the museum in the mountains above Julian, CA, in 2003. Kirsner had begun collecting fastener memorabilia in the 1960s and the museum building was designed around an oak bolt and nut cabinet that dated back to 1876. The collection started with books, advertising items such as pencils, rulers, letter openers, jewelry, wooden boxes and catalogs. There were bronze fasteners dating back to 3 A.D. and an 1853 photo of the Girard Steel Rolling Mills. The collection included such items as an 1892 catalog from Pawtucket Manufacturing Co. and a book, History of the Bolt & Nut Industry, written by W.R. Wilbur in 1905.

2010 – Frank A. Klaus, 94, A native of Pennsylvania, he moved to Los Angeles in 1938 with a Purdue classmate to develop what became aerospace fastener supplier Kaynar. Upon dividing holdings in 1961, Klaus became the sole owner of Kaynar, which later merged with Microdot Corporation. He also invested in commercial and aerospace fastener businesses, nearly acquiring control of Hi Shear before developing aerospace fastener manufacturer and supplier Bristol Industries.  He also owned H.C. Merchandisers, a distributor of bolts to aircraft and construction industries.

1987 – Jack Klein, senior vice president and a director of Ivaco Inc. of Canada. He was one of the original members of the company founded in 1950.

2013 – Ernest Eugene Komar, 75, founded two Michigan fastener companies: Alma Bolt Company and Prime Industrial Fastener of Midland.

2013 – Randall B. Komar, 48, of Midland, MI, owned and operated Prime Industrial Fasteners and Alma Bolt Company with his brother, Darrell Komar.

1998 – William Kramer, 75, founder and former president of Rolex Company. He was a sales manager for National Lockwasher Co. before he founded Rolex, a disc springs, Belleville springs manufacture, in his home 30 years ago. He was active in the Metropolitan Fastener Distributors Association and SAE.

2015 – Richard F. “Dick” Knobloch, 83, started a fastener distribution company in Atlanta in 1967 and later opened another business, which eventually was sold to Service Supply Co. in Indianapolis.
After moving to Columbus, IN in 1995, he worked for Service Supply as vice president and general manger of structural sales until his retirement. He chaired and was an honorary member of the ASTM Committee F16 on Fasteners and was also on ASTM Committee AO1 on Stainless Steel.

2013 – Douglas Scott Kreck, 72. With his brothers, he moved the family forging and heat treating business from Southern California to Carson City, Nevada in 1975.

2021 – George “Ted” Edwin Kress, 84, started G & G distributors in Oldsmar, FL in 1996 with his son Geoff.

2012 – Joe Kuchar, CEO of Titan Fastener Products Inc. He started in the industry in 1964 with American Fasteners in Chicago. He launched Hi-Ten Corp. in the mid-1970s and started Titan Fastener with his family in 1990. He was a National Fastener Distributors Association board member from 1985 to 1988 and was inducted into the NIFS Hall of Fame in 1990.

1995 – Edward Lacerra, 72, a purchasing agent for Warren Fastening Company in New York, NY, until he retired in 1984.

2017 – Edward J. Lacerra Jr., 67, of Kriscot Sales Co. of Rockford, IL, was a manufacturer’s sales rep for 35 years and had been a Midwest Fastener Association board member.

2012 – Wayne Lamb. His fastener career included Reynolds Fasteners and Heads & Threads, and he was the 2001 chairman of the Southwestern Fastener Association.

2009 – Bill Lang Sr., 76, co-founder of Certified Products Inc. He and his late wife, Ellen McNeely Lang, started Certified in 1988. He was the 1990-91 president of the Chicago Bolt, Nut & Screw Association.

2003 – Ellen Lang, 68, president of Certified Products Inc. She and her husband, Bill Lang Sr., founded Certified in 1988.

2006 – Howard S. Langdon, 91, founder of Fastron Company and the first president of the Chicago Bolt, Nut & Screw Association in 1946. Ly Nathan, Al Granat, Manny Slutzky and Langdon started what is now the Mid-West Fastener Association in order to buy basic supplies such as cartons.
Langdon told FIN in 1996 that “the industry was a colony then and nobody trusted each other. I had to put up the first check and then the others followed.” The informal early meetings revolved around discussions of issues facing their businesses and usually ended in a game of cards. Langdon recalled he was chosen as the first president because as a “jobber” he was in a neutral position.
Langdon started Langdon Industry Supply Co. in 1942 in Chicago. In 1960 Langdon moved the company to Franklin Park, IL, changed its name to Fastron Company and began manufacturing fasteners. He never retired and the company remains in the family.

2015 – Mary Ann Langholz, 83, was executive director of the National Fastener Distributors Association from 1976 to 1990.

2014 – James Martin Layden, 93. In 1951, Layden went to work for Bolt Supply Co., which later became Bosco Fastening Service Center. He retired from Bosco as president in 1983.
In 1984, he joined Porteous Fastener Co. as Southwest regional manager. He spent 17 years in this position, finally retiring for good in March 2001 after 50 years in the fastener industry.
Layden had been a member of the Southwest Fastener Association, and had served on the board of the National Fastener Distributor Association.

2010 – David E. Lebovitz, third generation owner and president of fastener distributor Albany Steel & Brass Corp. and construction supplier Turek & Sons. His grandfather, Hungarian immigrant Eugene (Jake) Lebovitz, founded the company as Lebovitz Brothers Hardware in 1918.

2018 – Robert Allan “Bob” Lehman, 90. He started in the fastener industry in 1956 as an intern for All Stainless Inc. in Boston while earning his bachelor’s degree at Northeastern University on the GI Bill. After graduating, he started his first sales job at Albany Products in Connecticut where he met his future wife, Joyce, who was working as the assistant to Edith Cameron.
In 1961, he became president of a startup company called Bell Fasteners in Paramus, NJ.  During his 15 years with Bell, he strengthened the ties between distributors and suppliers as he vowed to sell through distribution only.
He was active in the National Fastener Distributors Association and was a Metropolitan Fastener Distributors Association board member.
After Bell Fasteners was sold in 1976, the Lehman family moved to Southern California and he became Western region vice president for fastener distributor AFCOM Inc. However, in his heart, he was always a supplier, and he soon became general manager of the California branches of both Bossard and Majestic Screw & Bolt.  
In 1980, he and Joyce started Pacific Warehouse Sales. The initial business model was to be a stocking manufacturer’s representative and a wholesale distributor. Using his contacts from his East Coast days, he found manufacturers wanting to partner with PWS. In 1985, Deb, the first of his three daughters, started at PWS and was joined soon by her sisters Kelly and Tracy.  Bob had a dream of having his whole family working in the fastener industry.
He was instrumental in starting the Western Association of Fastener Distributors – later known as the Pac-West Fastener Association. He was WAFD secretary from 1982-1985 and later a board member of the Los Angeles Fastener Association.
In 1993 they gave their daughters ownership of the company. In 1994, Bob was inducted into the IFE Fastener Hall of Fame.

2011 – Paul G. Lemke, 91, of Lewiston, NY. After working for Buffalo Bolt Co. for 17 years, he left in 1959 to form Thruway Sales Co. and Thruway Fasteners Inc. For 1972-73, he was the third president of the National Fastener Distributors Association. He was a past director of the National Wholesale Association and a member of the NIFS Hall of Fame.

1992 – Paul G. Lemke Jr. 45, former president of Truway Fasteners of Liverpool, NY. He was the 1980-81 president of the National Fastener Distributors Association – following his father Paul Lemke Sr. who was NFDA president 1972-73.

2022 – Donald Joseph Lesko, 86, was general manager of Buckeye Fasteners, a division of Fastener Industries in Berea, OH.

2011 – Roland R. “Bob” Levesque, 84, was co-founder and had been president of Universal Fasteners & Supply Inc., in Cumberland, MD.

1994 – Sol Lessinger, 75, owned Universal Screw Corporation for 40+ years.

2015 – Jerry Calvin Lewellen, 68, owned Screw Products of Dallas.

2019 – Gary Kenneth Lilly and Elizabeth “Betty Lou” Lilly, both 70, died in a car wreck. He was the owner of Delaware-based Kenneth G. Lilly Fasteners, Inc. – a distributorship founded in 1964 by his father, Kenneth Granville Lilly.

2018 – Jeffrey Lee Lockshin, 64, whose early career was founder and owner of King Tool & Fastener in Bloomfield, NJ and later was in sales for Fastener Solutions in Garfield, NJ.

1992 – John Lohrman, 72, chairman of RB&W Corp. “Jack” Lohrman started in fasteners in 1957 as distribution manager for Russell, Burdsall & Ward Corp. He was named president and CEO of RB&W in 1973 and chairman in 1976. He retired as CEO in 1992, but remained chair.

2021 – John Paul Longyear, 71, retired from Metric & Multistandard Components Corp. in 2019 after a 47-year career. He was the first assistant manager for Metric & Multistandard, and with his wife, Chris Longyear, opened the Southwest branch. He was a leader in the Southwestern Fastener Association, including roles as treasurer in 1990 and chair in 1991, and treasurer from 2011-2013.

2018 – Frederick George Lubker Jr., 76, founded Lufasco Inc. (Lubker Fastener Company) in 1967 and led the company until it was sold in 1998.
He started in fasteners in the early 60’s at Wynne Bolt & Screw Company of Philadelphia, when being a quick and accurate typist was key to landing office work. He advanced to inside sales rep as his passion and understanding of the fastener distribution business grew.
In 1967, with an ‘open check’ loan from a supporting acquaintance he started Lufasco. The story is that Fred wrote the ‘blank check’ in the amount of $1,000 – big bucks in those days, with a promise he quickly honored to repay. Realizing shortly there-after that he would need support to provide customer service, he asked Rich Procopio to join him. Lufasco grew to provide fasteners in the Mid-Atlantic region, especially to OEMs.  In 1984, he bought full ownership of Lufasco.
His son Rick joined Lufasco full-time basis and eventually sons Chris and Ben came aboard. The business grew from a single facility in Exton PA, adding branches in Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carolina.  In 1998, he sold Lufasco to Purchased Parts Group of Memphis, TN.
He was an active member of the National Fastener Distributors Association and lectured on business entrepreneurship at industry events and college classrooms.

2015 – George Joseph Ludington, 69, had been president and owner of Universal Fastener & Supply in Waukesha, WI.

2014 – Ralph Luhm, 78, started as a draftsman in the aircraft industry and became vice president of engineering for fastener manufacturer Allfast Fastening Systems Inc. – where he worked for nearly 40 years.

2007 – Joseph Luranc joined Wayne Bolt & Nut Co in 1962 on the order desk and worked his way up to purchasing manager.

1983 – Chester B. Lynn, 69, CEO of Lawson Products. He had a 47-year career in industrial distribution. He joined Lawson in 1958 as director of sale. He became president in 1970 and CEO in 1977.
When he joined Lawson it had sales under $1 million and 35 sales agents. There are now over 1,100 sales agents and sales are over $100 million.

2010 –Thomas R. “Rob” MacGregor, 56. He owned and operated D&T Fasteners in Spencer, MA, for 10 years.

2005 – Robert “Bob” MacInnis, 75, spent 50 years in industrial fastener industry making sales calls in 40 states. His fastener career included 22 years with Danforth Screw & Bolt.

2021 – James Alan Banks MacNaughton, 71,  best known as ‘Alan,’ owned several fastener businesses, including Fastener Wholesalers of New Hampshire.

2022 – Stephen Chalmers Mahoney Sr., 93, started his career in industrial sales for Yale & Towne and then joined SPS Technologies as a regional sales manager selling industrial fasteners from New York and Pennsylvania to Texas, Michigan and Illinois. He finished his career as an independent manufacturer’s rep based in Indiana. He was proud of selling SPS Technologies’ aerospace products to NASA for the first Space Shuttle.

2014 – Richard A. “Dick” Malson, 74. At age 14 he was a blueprint boy in the engineering office at Lamson & Sessions and after graduating from Ohio University with degree in mechanical engineering he advanced to VP by age 29.
In 1977, he founded Ramco Specialties Inc. from the back of a machine shop with an innovative new way to produce quality locknuts. He loved to tell the story of using a bathroom scale to weigh out the nuts for his first orders. Ohio-based Ramco grew to an international company with locations in Italy and Scandinavia.

2005 – Scott T. Malson, 40, president of Ramco Specialties Inc. He joined the family business in 1987 and was instrumental in Ramco’s international expansion with Ramco Europe and Ramco Scandinavia.

2019 – Pleas Ronald (Ron) Manley, 66, of Alabama was in sales and upper management positions with several worldwide fastener companies. He had chaired the Industrial Fasteners Institute Aerospace Policy Committee. For 12 years he was a part-owner of Opelika Bolt LLC, a fastener distributorship in East Alabama. 

2020 – Keith E. Mantis, founder and owner of  Fasteners Inc / Southwestern Supply, internet retailer ToolUp.com and Professional Contractors Supply.  He started San Diego Fasteners Inc. in a storage unit in San Diego in 1987 as a construction supply company.
He joined the Evergreen Marketing Group in 1994, served on the board 1997-2000 and as president 1999-2000. He served 25 years on Evergreen’s education committee.  Mantis also served on the Specialty Tool & Fastener Distributor Association board.

1998 – Vince Marcheschi, 53, a cofounder of Rainbow Fastener Company in 1985 with Will Rodriguez and Scott Turner. He was a former president of the Southwestern Fastener Association.

2011 – Frederick W. “Bill” Marshall, 85, served as long time vice president of sales for Carlo Salvi in North America.

2015 – James E. “Jim” Marshall, 80, started his career in his father’s farm implement business and then industrial hardware business with his brother. With his wife, Mary, they founded J&E Supply from their Oklahoma City home in 1970.

2001 – Dennis Marteeny, 71, one of the original partners of Faspac software and a former fasteners distributor. He owned Western Fastener Co. with Bill Vollmer from 1969 to 1984.

2009 – Hugh Martin, All-Spec Fasteners.

2010 – Rudy Martinez Sr., 70, started his 40-year fastener career with Mountain States Bolt & Nut and was involved in starting three fastener companies: Massey’s, Mar-Bro and R&R Fasteners.

2018 – James Timothy “Tim” Marzano, 61, president of international operations for ND Industries. He was the 1989-91 president of the Los Angeles Fastener Association.

2013 – Maryann Pearl Marzocchi, 74, vice president for advertising sales and a co-founder of Distributor’s Link magazine. She was with Southern Screw when her brother-in-law – then sales rep Leo Coar – recruited her to co-found Link in 1977

2004 – Gene Mascaro, purchasing agent for Arnold Supply Inc. of Wallingford, CT. He had been with Arnold Supply for 17 years and was active in the New England Fastener Distributors Association.

2010 – Kenneth Masen, 67, president and owner of The Fastener Group of Avon, MA.

1996 – Orville D. Massey, 64. He was president of Greer Stop Nut Inc. and his 30 year fastener career included Huck International and Esna.

2011 – John P. Masterson, 52, mechanical engineer for Fasteners Corp. and Girard Fastener Company.

2000 – Judith O. Matthews, a principal with Secure Fastener & Tool Company Inc. She was in the fastener industry 34 years and was a National Fastener Distributors Association board member.

2006 – James Matta, 54. He joined Sel-Pro after finishing college, spent two years with Northwest Automatic Screw in Minnesota and then rejoined Sel-Pro where he spent the past 25 years.

2020 – Michael Joseph Maykut, 92.  In 1972, he founded fastener distributorship Fasco Inc. in Naperville, IL.

2001 – Thomas C. “Tom” McCall, 84, founded fastener recruiting firm Tom McCall & Associates in 1947.
In a 1997 interview with FIN marking his 50th anniversary in fastener industry recruiting, he said he had lost track of the number of people he had placed in fastener jobs, but it was “probably between 3,000 and 4,000, and some of them more than once.”

1981 – Mickey McClure, founder of Capital Bolt & Supply, in Austin, Texas. He was the 1980 chair of the Southwestern Fastener Association.

2000 – Allan G. McCulloch, 71, invented the patented McCulloch Kwik Bolt to anchor things to concrete. He got the idea after watching a drilling apparatus wedge a bit into a hole to anchor something and he decided there must be a better anchoring system. After experimenting and testing he founded McCulloch Industries in the 1960s to manufacture Kwik Bolts on old screw machines in a shop near downtown Minneapolis. In the 1970s he sold the company and the rights to the bolts to Hilti.
His career also included operating Minneapolis fastener distributor Langford Tool & Drill and starting Mason Cutters, a concrete sawing subcontractor.

2012 – Charles “C-Mack” McFarland, a driver and warehouse employee for Big D Bolt & Tool Company was shot outside a Dallas drive-in restaurant about 1 a.m. September 22, 2012, in Dallas.
McFarland, 47, had been in the fastener industry for 28 years and had previously worked for Steelfast Inc., Dallas Fasteners and Screw Products.
Police arrested Ozaveone Terrel Jackson, 18, and he was charged with capital murder. Jackson is a suspect in a second shooting that night.
According to police three robbers approached McFarland in the drive-thru of Williams Fried Chicken Restaurant and demanded money. McFarland replied, “I have nothing” and drove away. The police report four shots were fired as he drove off and one struck McFarland’s shoulder.  Four blocks away he crashed into a utility pole. McFarland told police what happened before he died at Baylor Hospital.

1996 – Robert O. McGuire, 78. The second generation in fasteners, his 40-year distribution career included owning Capital Sales Inc.

2022 – Edward James “Ed” McIlhon, 75, was a leader in the U.S. Fastener Quality Act legislative process and the 1994-95 president of the National Fastener Distributors Association.  He was inducted into the IFE Hall of Fame in 2019. He established a branch of his father’s Iowa Industrial Products in Cedar Falls and returned to Des Moines in 1999 to head IIP.  After selling to Bossard of Switzerland, he became president of IIP.  He started McIlhon & Associates with his son, Casey McIlhon; bought back a portion of IIP; and in 2005 established Assembled Products, Inc.

2020 – John McKewan, a native of England, obtained a degree in mechanical engineering and spent his career in the fastener industry. He owned G.T. Specialty Fasteners Inc. of Walled Lake, MI.

1999 – Daniel L. “Dan” McIlhon, 76, founder of Iowa Industrial Products Inc. and the first president of the National Fastener Distributors Association. A singer, he performed at NFDA meetings.

2017 – Joseph Patrick “Joe” McIlhon, 64, was with his multi-generation distributorship, Iowa Industrial Products.  He was the 1999-2000 president of the National Fastener Distributors Association. After college he started to work at Iowa Industrial in 1976 – which was founded by his father, Dan McIlhon, in 1960.  After IIP was sold to Bossard, he joined Porteous Fasteners in 2007.  He retired to Johnston, IA, in 2014.

2005 – Patrick Dennis “Pat” McIlhon, 79. Pat and his brother, Dan McIlhon founded Iowa Industrial Products I 1960. In 1976 Pat opened Tools Inc., a construction tool and fastener distributorship, which was incorporated as Diamond Tool & Fastener in 1987. He was president of STAFDA in 1983.

2013 – Steve W. McKinney, 58, president of Southern Fastening Systems Inc. of Alabama.

2012 – Alan L. McKinnon, 84. His career started in banking before he moved to United Carr Fastener. After the purchase of United Carr Fastener by TRW he returned to banking.

2010 – Michael F. McManus Jr., 80, founded Romulus, MI-based automotive parts supplier Header Products in 1963, with an investment of $2,000. He attributed the company success to employees and showed his appreciation with health and retirement plans, bonuses, Christmas parties and by taking employees and families on trips to Florida, Toronto and Chicago.
McManus founded the McManus Distinguished Business Lecture Series at Madonna University.

2005 – Tim McNulty, who retired from Hi-Tech Fasteners after a 43-year fastener career. He started in the fastener industry in 1962 with Gripco Nut Company and subsequently held positions with Lamson & Sessions, the Homen division of Automatic Screw and Medalist.

2023 – David Meyers Sr., 83, founded Meyers Company of Pittsburgh, PA, in 1972.  He had been a Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association board member.

2004 – Douglas V. Miller, chairman of Bamal Fastener Corp. He and two partners started Bamal in 1953. He was one of the founding members of the National Fastener Distributors Association and was the third NFDA president from 1971-1972.

1996 – Orvil J. Miller, 64. He spent all 44 years of his fastener career with Decker Mfg. Corp., including 28 years as plant manager.

2017 – Rustin Allen “Russ” Miller, 58, of New Jersey, owner/operator of Onyx Fasteners Inc. for 32 years.

2015 – Larry Russell Mills, 72. His final fastener role was handling outside sales for XL Screw. His career also included being vice president of sales & marketing for Brico Industries. He was active in the Mid-West Fastener Association.

1991 – Isadore “Izzy” Mintz started his fastener career as a purchasing agent for Stevens Socket Company and worked his way up to president. He was instrumental in the merger of Stevens and Hunter Co., which became Hunter-Stevens. He retired in 1977 and returned in 1978 to form EZ Sockets.

2015 – Ruth Ringel Mintz, 100, had retired from E Z Sockets at age 99. With her husband, Isadore (Izzy) Mintz, daughter Mildred Werner and son-in-law Ed Werner, the four founded E Z Sockets in 1978. .

2010 – Michael J. Miraglia, 54, had been an owner of Cascade Nut & Bolt Inc. of Salem, OR.

1994 – Gerald “Jerry” Mitchell, 57, president of Eugene Fastener Supply Co. He opened Eugene Fastener in 1964. He was a member of the National Fastener Distributors Association and a charter member of the Western Association of Fastener Distributors.
2017 – Vincent B. Morrison, 74, owner of Veterans Fastener Supply Corp. in Syracuse, NY.

2015 – Paul Edward Morath, 68, started in fasteners with Cold Heading Company, an automotive fastener company in Detroit, in the finance department and eventually became COO. He later joined Ring Screw Company and went into a partnership to form Shamrock Precision Fasteners. Ring Screw and Shamrock were eventually sold to Textron.
After retiring, he helped start Shannon Precision Fasteners and still held the title of president emeritus.

2007 – Joseph Morrow, 79, CEO of Monogram Aerospace Fasteners until retiring in 1993.

2008 – John Dwight Morton III, 73, owner of Morton Industrial Sales Corp. of Plymouth, MA. He was a member of the New England Fastener Distributors Association for more than 20 years. The NEFDA will award the John Morton Scholarship annually in his honor.

2005 – Lee V. Mounsey of LM Enterprises. His 25-year fastener career began at Custom Bolt Mfg. I Phoenix and included Eskay Screw, Lewis Screw and Medalist. He started L.M. Enterprises as a manufacturers rep agency in Dallas in 1996.

2005 – John Edward Mouton, 63, co-founder of Drillco Cutting Tools. He was founder and part owner in PBC Industrial Supplies Inc., Drillco Inc., Mouton Enterprises Inc., M&W Enterprises and Magnum Solid Carbide LLC.

2012 – James A. Mraz, 66, founded Nova Machine Products Corporation in 1984. He received the Weatherhead 100 Award as the outstanding growth company in Northeastern Ohio and Weatherhead outstanding company four years in a row. He was active in the Industrial Fasteners Institute, Nuclear Society and North Coast Fastener Association.

2007 – Philip Mullane, started in the fastener business in 1955 at Vulcan Rivet & Bolt. He founded his own agency in 1968, representing many companies over the next 30 years, including Bell/Vertex, ND Industries and Unique Industries.

1998 – Bob Muller, 79, founder and president of Action Bolt & Tool Company of Lake Park, FL. He started his fastener career in the mailroom of RB&W and advanced to Eastern regional sales manager. He founded Action 22 years ago.

2006 – Craig M. Myers, 62, retired vice president of sales for fastener division of Marson Corporation.

1991 – Orville Niesz, 63, owner and president of Tacoma Screw Products. He bought the Washington distributorship in 1966 after serving as sales manager.

1994 – William Harrison North, 77, retired president of Ferry Cap & Set Screw Co. His grandfather founded the company and his father and brother had been presidents.

2021 – Sam Andrew Notcoh, 83, began his fastener career in 1964 as the Rhode Island sales rep for Duo-Fast.  In 1991 he opened Notcoh Sales Co.  He actively supported the International Code Council High School Technical Training program.

2001 – Norm Nunamaker, 54, inside sales manager for ND Industries. He was with ND for 14 years and in fasteners most of his career.

2007 – Chuck O’Brien, 66, president of Ring Screw Works of Madison Heights, MI, before selling the business to Textron Inc. in 1998. In 2001 he and his wife, Linda O’Brien, founded Emerald Steel Processing LLC. He was the 1991-92 chairman of the Industrial Fasteners Institute.

2002 – Jack O’Donnell, 65, Interstate Screw Corporation branch manager. He started with Interstate in 1987 as an inside salesman. The South Florida distributor will start a scholarship in his name with the Southeastern Fastener Association.

2003 – John F. “Jack” O’Donoghue Jr., vice president of Accurate Fasteners Inc. He was active in the National Fastener Distributors Association.

2022 – Patrick Joseph O’Toole, 85, started in the industrial supply distribution business in 1971.  He took over Atlantic Fasteners of West Springfield, MA in 1981 and sold it to employees as an ESOP in 2005. He had been president of the New England Fastener Distributors Association and was the 1990-91 president of the National Fastener Distributors Association. He was inducted in the NIFS Hall of Fame in 2004.

2020 – Kenneth A. Oberuch, 85, started his fastener career with Spriex-Atlas and became a division general manager. In 1984 he started his own company Fastener & Maintenance Supply Co., Inc., in Akron, OH. He was a North Coast Fastener Association board member.

1984 – Eli Ogulnick, president of Secure Fastener & Tool Co. He began his fastener career in 1928 as an office boy at Parker Kalon, where he worked his way through college and law school. He advanced through Parker Kalon to general manager.
He founded Secure Fastener in 1958.

1996 – Frank Oliva, 83, co-founder of Cold Header Machine Corporation in 1968 with Irv Hertzberg.

2022 – Joe Orosz, 84, started his career in machine repair and maintenance at Canada Forge and eventually become vice president of Niagara Fasteners of Ontario.

2009 – Shigeharu Oshima, 59, a Hokkaido, Japan, native, was president of Topura America Fastener Inc. – a Kentucky-based manufacturer.

2021 – George James Oshkello, 79, had a career in sales until retiring from Brighton-Best International in 2005.  At BBI he was responsible for building the regional sales team and opening up international markets.

2009 – Minnette Osser, 78, started with Disco Industrial in Los Angeles in the 1960s and then was purchasing manager for Western Fastener in San Diego for 12 years. Her career also included Hayes Bolt & Supply and Southland Corp.
“Minnette was one of the early female pioneers in the fastener industry who paved the way for many women to enjoy success in a previously male dominated industry,” Suzanne Dukes of Hayes Bolt commented.

2014 – Kenneth A. Ozaniec, 73, while with Cronin Fasteners was the 1985-86 president of the Chicago Bolt, Nut & Screw Association.

2013 – Troy H. Palmer, 76, of Tex Thread Inc. He was active in the Southwestern Fastener Association.

2013 – Richard “Dick” Douglas Parker Jr. In 1962, he formed a buy-out company for Screw Products Dallas Corporation and was president until retiring in 1980. He was president of Southwest Fastener Association and vice president of National Fastener Distributors Association.

2013 – Walter John Potoczny Jr. 59, held a Ph.D. in engineering and was an executive at Autocraft Global.

2010 – Jikyoon “JP” Park, 52, director of purchasing for XL Screw Corporation.
“JP’s contributions to the success of our company will be felt for many years to come,” XL CEO Bob Sachs said

2013 – Richard “Dick” Douglas Parker Jr. formed a buy-out company for Screw Products Dallas Corporation in 1962 and was president until retiring in 1980.
He was president of Southwest Fastener Association and vice president of National Fastener Distributors Association.

2014 – James John “Jim” Partridge, 82. He founded Big Bolt Corporation in 1976.

2009 – William J. “Bill” Partridge, 55, of Florida Tool & Fastener Inc.

2013 – Paul A. Patnaude, 84, of Agawam, MA, founded and had been president of Springfield Fasteners and Atlantic Fasteners of West Springfield. A history buff and writer, in his retirement on the Cape he researched and wrote a book on world trade.

2009 – Leslie “Les” Pearson, 86, founded Time Screw Manufacturing in 1949 and Pearson Fastener Corp. in 1971.

1999 – Janie Perkaus, co-founder of Fastener Specialties Manufacturing. She had been in the fastener industry for 30 years.

2006 – Rick Perkaus Sr., 65, co-founder of Fastener Specialties Manufacturing. He started in the fastener industry as a teenager at Heads & Threads in Chicago. He joined Stevens Socket Screw (later Hunter-Stevens) and in the early 1970s went out on his own selling screws and making deliveries.

2013 – Mason Phelps, 88. After serving in World War II and graduating from Yale University, he joined the family business, Pheoll Manufacturing in Chicago.
As CEO in the early 1950s, he acquired Voi-Shan Industries (VSI), an aircraft fastener manufacturing company, and moved with the business to Pasadena, CA. He was CEO of VSI from 1953 to 1980. During his time at VSI, he was responsible for developing the threading technique of titanium bolts and fasteners for the aerospace industry. This led to fastener contracts with NASA for the Saturn V rockets used through the Apollo moon missions. VSI also supplied Boeing and McDonald/Douglas.
In 1980 Fairchild Industries acquired VSI and he took role of senior vice president and Fairchild director until retiring in 1982.

Joe J. “Joe”  Pivarnik, 91, died August 23, 2020.  He had been president of the part of the North Coast Fastener Association and was inducted into the NCFA Hall of Fame.

1988 – Ken Pobursky, 57, of Newformed Products. He had been national sales manager for Allen Manufacturing from 1982-1986 and from 1960 to 1982 held sales and marketing positions with ITW Shakeproof, CamCar-Textron and Mac-It. He was active in several fastener associations.

2015 – Michael Jeffrey “Jeff” Podshadley, 54, started in fasteners in 1980 and his 35-year career included Reynolds Fasteners, Partsmaster and Infasco, Brighton-Best International, Interstate Threaded Products and All State Fasteners.
He was on the Southwestern Fastener Association board from 1999 to 2002 and 2007 to 2010.

2019 – James Thomas “Jim” Pokracki, 78, started with Construction Tool &Threading Company of Southern California in 1988 and acquired the nuts and bolts manufacturer five years later. He sold the company to Industrial Threaded Products in 2019. His career started working at Ryerson Steel in Chicago and later he worked for Sullivan Bolt.

2012 – Shirley Ruth Polidori-Tuffaha, 71, vice president and co-owner of Northwest Fastener in Houston. She also was a registered nurse.

2012 – Dominic Anthony Polimeni, 66, started as a CPA with Arthur Young & Company where he rose to partner in 1978. He joined Arrow Electronics Inc. in 1980.
With his brother-in-law, Robert Gubitosi, and son, Chris Polimeni, he founded Questron Technology Inc. in 1994. Questron acquired fastener distributorships to provide inventory logistics management services to OEMs.  He was chairman and CEO until Questron went into bankruptcy and the remnants were sold to General Electric in 2002.
In 2003 he became chairman and CEO of another fastener distributor, Distribution Dynamics Inc. in Eden Prairie, MN, until the company was sold in bankruptcy in 2004.

2007 – Sidney L. “Sid” Port founded Lawson Products in 1952 at age 40.  The native Chicagoan graduated from Lane Tech High School, University of Illinois – where he was a basketball player – and DePaul University. Initially a publisher and attorney, he joined his father-in-law’s company, Lion Auto Parts, where he sold fasteners out of the trunk of his car. That convinced him he could supply businesses with small, consumable parts. Lawson Products went public in 1970, but he remained active in the company his death at age 96.

2005 – J.B. “Bud” Porteous, 86, who founded Porteous Fastener Company in 1966, started in the fastener business working for Russell Bolt.
Bud and his late wife Anne founded the Porteous Family Foundation in 1995 to fund grammar and high school education scholarships for inner-city children in Los Angeles.

2013 – Walter John Potoczny Jr. 59, held a Ph.D. in engineering and was an executive at Autocraft Global.

2005 – Frederic Booth Powers Jr., 72, retired chairman and president of Powers Fasteners Inc. He started in the fastener industry in 1958 with Rawlplug Co., which had been founded by his father.
Under Frederic Powers, the company expanded in construction and plant maintenance markets and added manufacturing facilities in Michigan Indianapolis and Chicago; acquired a Canadian firm; and established 28 regional sale locations. In 1995 the business name was changed to Powers Fasteners Inc. as part of international expansion plans. Facilities were opened in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Southeast Asia.

2008 – Stephen Powers, 45, died in a motorcycle accident. He was one of four brothers who ran Powers Fasteners. He managed the Powers information technology sector and was business manager for Powers overseas companies in eight countries.

2007- Constance “Connie” Prentice, 78, owner and president of ABC Supply of Sacramento, CA. She founded ABC in 1973.

2010 – Bryant S. Procter, 87, started in the fastener industry with Harper Screw Co., and then joined fastener manufacturer Central Screw Co. as Keene, N.H. based outside salesman and later became sales manager. He was transferred to the Los Angeles division as West Coast manager.
After establishment of FTR Fasteners by three former Central Screw employees he joined them as a full partner.

2009 – Dallas E. Puckett Sr., 74, founder of Valley Nut & Bolt Company in 1969. In 1961 he became a sales representative for Tacoma Screw Products and advanced to sales manager at its Seattle stores.

2007 – Hal Pulfer, 48, owner and president of Security Locknut Inc. of Highland Park, IL.

1991 – Jack Pye, one of the founders of both the Southwestern Fastener Association and National Fastener Distributors Association. He started his career in the fastener division of Smith Industries. He later formed a Houston-based representative agency.

1998 – Cindy V. Ramsey, 54, of Bell Fasteners. She was a Southwestern Fastener Association board member. She started in the fastener industry in 1975 with Bell Fasteners in Chicago.
During her career she was a data-entry clerk, expeditor, inside salesperson, office manager, assistant branch manager and Houston branch manager.

2010 –Ira Randall, 95, founder of aerospace rivet distributor Glovers Mills in 1962.

1981 – James Rayburn, who founded Flexalloy Inc. in 1967 and was one of the founders of the National Fastener Distributors Association. The NFDA honored him by naming the golf championship trophy after him – the Rayburn Cup.
He was succeeded as Flexalloy CEO by his 26-year-old son, Andy Rayburn.

2003 – Walter R. Rech, 81, was president and owner of Reynolds Fasteners in Rosalyn, NY and vice president of Athlone Industries. He retired in 1985.

2015 – Nelson Kerr Reid, 86, started as a sales rep for Ideal Fastener and later became an independent manufacturer’s representative for nine fastener companies.

2008 – Bernie Reiland, retired from Camcar. He received the Trowbridge Technology Award from the Industrial Fasteners Institute for “significant life-long contributions to technical advancements in the fastener industry and the development of fastener drive systems that have been adopted worldwide.”

2012 – Eugene J. Reilly Sr., 85,  began his career working on screw machines at the Waterbury Bristol Company. He transitioned to outside sales, then became northeastern regional sales manager for various manufacturing firms, including Dack Industries, TADA Troy Company and Parker Kalon. He retired from Arnold Supply in Wallingford, in 1998, after 15 years as quality control manager.
He was active in the New England Fasteners Distributors Association, Metropolitan Fasteners Association and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.

2021 – Howard Reiter, 61, was the third-generation president of the fastener manufacturing company founded by Daniel Reiter in 1934 – Rome Fastener Corporation. He received degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and held multiple U.S. and foreign patents. He also was president of Rome Fastener Corporation, Romag Fasteners Inc, Romed Fasteners Inc and Grand Fasteners Limited.

2010 – James Venable “Jim” Revercomb Sr. founded Revcar Fasteners in 1969 and grew it to a regional fastener distributorship. He oversaw the transition of Revcar to the Würth Group in 1996.
He began his career Kaiser Aluminum and then started in fasteners with RB&W.
He was the 1982-83 National Fastener Distributors Association president and was inducted into the NIFS Hall of Fame in 1995.

2020 – James “Jim” Ricke, 81, worked for his father’s Inland Fasteners in the early 1970’s and purchased it in 1978.

2014 – Douglas Grant “Doug” Riddell, 81, began his fastener career in Milton, Ontario at P.L. Robertson. In 1958, he was offered a management opportunity in Jacksonville, FL.
His entrepreneurial spirit led him to establish several fastener and automotive safety equipment distribution companies in the U.S. and Canada, including Intertek Industrial Corp. in Jacksonville.

2003 – George Riff, 89, co-founder of Hoyt Fastener Corp. He was vice president of Active Screw in Chicago before he and Joe Hoyt started Niles, IL-based Hoyt Fasteners in 1967. Hoyt Fasteners merged with Champion Bolt Corp. in 1996 to form AXS Solutions Inc., which became part of Pentacon Inc. in 1998 (later Anixter Pentacon).

2006 – William J. Roche, 90, founder and chairman of fastener manufacturer Acme Screw Co., which he started in 1948.

2011 – Raymond W. Rocker, 89, of Mt. Clemens, MI, owned and operated Metal Fastener Company. His career began with Mount Clemens Metal Products and then he was a plant supervisor at McLaughlin Company.

2009 – Guillermo “Will” Rodriguez, founder and president of The Fastener Connection. He started in the fastener industry in the warehouse of Coastal Fasteners as a college student.
He co-founded Rainbow Fastener Corp. with Scott Turner and Vince Marcheschi in 1985. They sold Rainbow to Distribution Dynamics Inc. in 1998 and in 2000 he left DDI.
In 2007 he founded Fastener Connection and acquired the Tennessee branches of Lightning Components Corp.
He was president of the Southwestern Fastener Association in 1992.

2008 – Bob J. Rollo, a partner in WCL Company.

2009 – Bill Roseberry, Central Screw and founding partner of FTR.

2018 – John Anthony Rossman, 90, retired as general manager and executive VP of Joseph Dyson & Sons and the subsidiary Shreck Corp. in 1985 after 38 years with Dyson. He was instrumental in expanding the Dyson product line to include fasteners for the Brooklyn Bridge refurbishment and the Alaska pipeline. He started his career with Shields Engineering in Cleveland.

2017 – Neil Rostoff, 78, founded Admiral Fastener in 1993 with spouse Estelle Taylor Rostoff and daughter Karen Rostoff. They developed it into a New England automotive fastener distributorship.

2006 – Marcia Lynn “Cis” (Novak) Rudick, 49, was a co-owner with her brothers of rivet manufacturer Speedbear Fasteners of Imperial, PA.

2008 – George J. Ruetz, 82, chairman and CEO of All Fasteners Inc. He founded All Tool Sales Inc. in 1962 and All Fasteners in 1978.

2016 – Vance Rule, 91, of The Rule Company. He bought a small nut and bolt company in 1963 and used his station wagon to deliver parts.

2011 – James “Jim” Russell, 83.  After starting a career as a CPA, he bought Fort Worth Bolt & Tool in 1976.  He was active in the Southwestern Fastener Association.

2019 – Mark Robert Ryan, 61, founded Associated Fastening Products in 1989 in his garage in Buffalo Grove, IL.  He grew the company to 25 employees and a 25,000 sq ft facility in Itasca. In 2001 he also started Integrated Packaging & Fastener to provide packaging hardware.

1972 – Norman Sackheim, 57, died in an airplane crash over Moscow. He founded Heads & Threads in 1953 and sold the company in 1960 to MSL Industries. He was then vice chairman of the board until he left in 1963.
After a five-year non-compete agreement was over, he started XL Screw in 1968 with Hatrold Sohrauer.

2015 – Arthur “Art” Salani, founder and president of Global Fastener & Supply Inc. in 1985. He was a National Fastener Distributors Association board member from 1995 to 1998. He was also president of Grease Fittings Solutions.

2012 – Robert “Bob” Santare, 57, president and co-founder of Champion Fasteners in Lumberton, NJ. He started Champion Fasteners in 1990 with Stan Lippincott and Aldo Magazzeni.
In 2002 Santare was recognized by the federal Small Business Administration as the New Jersey Small Business Person of the Year.

2015 – Barbara Ann Saviano, 60, founder of Fasteners By Design and a past board member of the Mid-West Fastener Association.

2015 – Ralph W. Schack, 77, retired CEO of Los Angeles-based Century Fasteners Inc. when it acquired Consolidated Bolt & Nut Co. Earlier he had been with Alvo Nut & Bolt.

2022 – Henry T. “Hank” Schaffner, 92, started his career with U.S. Steel in 1956. He started in fasteners in 1959 with SPS and also worked for Allen Manufacturing Company, and Titan Fasteners. In 1977 he started Hank Schaffner Associates as a rep agency. He was a member of the Los Angeles Fastener Association and the Western Association of Fastener Distributors during his 59 years in the fastener industry.  

2010 –Edwin E. Schaft, 77, was with the Ohio Nut & Bolt Co. for 44 years. He was named chief engineer in 1967 and helped build Modern Fasteners Co. Schaft was a member of SME.

2013 – Gary L. Schuster, 63, started as corporate pilot and sales engineer for Industrial Nut Corp. in 1980 and subsequently became head of sales.

2003 – Charles G. “Dick” Scofield, 74. He was managing director of the Industrial Fasteners Institute from 1984 to 1996.

2012 – James Richard “Jim” Schoeplein began his career with National Screw & Manufacturing in Cleveland. He later was a salesperson for Accurate Threaded Fasteners of Chicago, and United Screw & Bolt in Philadelphia.
In 1967 he moved to Lancaster, PA, to join National Bearings as sales manager and later became vice president and COO.
In 1991 he opened Quadradix International, a manufacturer’s rep agency.

2018 – Joseph “Joe” Scott, 78, and his wife Shirley Scott founded Scott Supply Service Inc., a fastener company in Tucson, AZ, and operated it from 1974 to 2011. 

2009 – Thomas L. Seal, 57, of Arlington Fastener. A 25-year fastener veteran with warehouse, inventory, sales and purchasing roles, he was a Chicago Bolt, Nut & Screw Association board member from 2003 to 2004 when he was with Rose Industrial.

2013 – Ronald H. “Ronnie” Seiden, 89, founded the fastener distributorship Interstate Screw Corp. and later acquired Atlas Bolt & Nut and Allied Screw of Dixie merging the companies to create the largest screw company in South Florida at the time. He was nicknamed the  “Screw King.”

2004 – Paula Rae Sens, 56, vice president of Advance Components, where she started 32 years ago as a “girl Friday.” She was the 1990 president of the Southwestern Fastener Association.

2009 – Marcia Shain, 65, started in the fastener industry with West Spec in the 1970s. She retired from the successor Vertex Distribution four years ago. She was active in the Los Angeles Fastener Association.

2013 – Norman A. Shanks, 83, of Avon Lake, OH, was with Milford Rivet Co. for 25 years, including roles as vice president and general manager, and was known by many in the fastener industry as “Mr. Rivet.”
In 1975 he founded Marathon Fasteners and later North Coast Rivet Co. and North Coast Marathon Associates for engineering and development of special parts. He sold the companies for retirement.
He was a life member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.

2015 – Ralph S. Shoberg, P.E., 75, is credited as the father of the rotary torque transducer to measure assembly torque dynamically, and the wheel force transducer for vehicle road load data.
After graduating from the University of Michigan, he was a test engineer for Easton Aerospace and then co-founded GSE Inc., a test/measurement firm where he led developed a test system for testing threaded fasteners for torque vs. tension and calculating undressed and thread friction coefficients.
He founded RS Technologies, where he developed the patented M-Alpha analysis method for determining clamp load through analysis of torque vs. angle signatures. He also brought the German engineering standard of VDI 2230 to the Windows desktop for calculating the stresses in critical bolted joints by SR1 software.
He was a member of SAE, where he was involved in study of wheel lug nut design and tightening and analyzing the bolted joint assembly process and development of equipment for the dual mechanical testing of threaded fasteners.
The Industrial Fasteners Institute honored him with its Soaring Eagle Award in 2013.

2009 – Weldon J. Shrum, 79, founder and owner of Fastener Supply Company. He founded Fastener Supply in 1959 and grew the company to five locations in North and South Carolina. He was a director of the National Fastener Distributors Association.

2015 – Wayne Leroy Simmer, 72, started his career as a CPA and in 1978 he acquired Des Moines Bolt Supply. He managed the Iowa distributorship until turning it over to his children in 2012.

2011 – Norman Scott Sittner, 70, owned and operated General Fastener in Kansas City, MO for 20 years and Ozark Nut & Bolt in Linn Creek for five years.

2009 – Robert H. Slass, 80, founder and president of Rotor Clip Co. A graduate mechanical engineer, he founded Rotor Clip in 1957.

2005 – Beverly Smith, director of global customer support and U.S. product management for Alcoa Fastening Systems. She started in the fastener industry in 1979 as a pricing clerk with Voi-Shan, one of the businesses which eventually became part of Alcoa. She advanced to manager before joining Hi-Shear Corp. as inside sales manager.
In 1997 she joined Burbank Aircraft, which later became part of Allied Signal. She returned to Alcoa in 1999.

2019 – Robert Lee “Bob” Snodgrass, 69, started Metroplex Supply Inc., an automotive fastener supply company in Stilwell, KS, and operated it for 30 years.

2011 – James J. Soares, 79. In 1977, he founded Aquidneck Fasteners Inc..

1991 – Harold Sohrauer, a founder and former vice president of XL Screw Corp.

2004 – Melvin John “Mel” Soloway, 62, founder in 1979 and president of Calgary Fasteners & Tools. He also founded the Fastener Group with 13 Western Canada branches.

2001 – Herbert Ross Somers, 71, founder of Mid-States Bolt & Screw Co. He grew the Flint, MI-based distributorship to 12 Midwest locations and 140 employees.

2001 – Hubert Woodrow “Bert” Souther, 81, and Elizabeth Souther, 79. He founded Cal Aero Supply Co. in 1968.
In 2008 Theodore Shove, 55, was convicted of first-degree murder in their slayings and sentenced to death in California. Jurors found Shove had sought to take over Souther’s company. Lewis Hardin, 35, also was convicted of first-degree murder with a life prison term sentence.

1991 – George C. Spaetzel, president of Spae-Naur Inc., Kitchener, Ontario.

2008 – Gary Spedding of Stainless Threaded Fasteners. He began his fastener career in 1973 with Hasselfors UK Ltd. In 1982 he started with Serco Ryan and joined the board in 1989. In 1996 he established Precision Stainless Fasteners for holding company Charles Baynes Group and in 2001 negotiated the sale of PSF to Apex Stainless Fasteners in a management buyout and became joint managing director.
In 2003 he became operations director for Apex and in 2006 he joined Stainless Threaded Fasteners as business development manager and traveled for the export department.

2020 – Watson Woodrow Stanley, 96, founded Darling Bolt in 1958 in Warren, MI.  Upon selling it to a partner, he started Stanley Industries in 1967.  He was a Detroit Institute of Technology graduate.  In the Army he was shot in Europe on V-E Day – the last day of World War II.  He was awarded a Purple Heart.

2007 – Calvin Edward “Cal” Stearns, 80, an Ohio-based manufacturers rep for 44 years – including for R.L. English. He was a professional hockey player for 20 years.

2015 – Lawrence J. “Larry” Stefan, 79, founder and owner of Bradley Coatings of St. Charles, IL.

1996 – Allen R. “Bob” Steich, 66. His 40-year fastener career included 20 years as president of Bell Fasteners.

2004 – Gerald “Jerry” Stevens, retired general manager of Giant Bolt & Fastener division of Wayne Bolt & Nut Co. He joined Wayne Bolt in 1966 when National Cold Forging Co. (later NSS Industries) sold its Flat Rock, MI, facility, where he had been general manager for 22 years.
He retired in 1988 and was succeeded by his son, David Stevens.

2017 – David Eugene Stewart, 91, started Aycock & Stewart Fastener in Charlotte, NC, in 1961. The company became Stewart Fastener & Tool.

2008 – Heinz Storch, 63, founded Fastbolt Distributors Ltd. with Bernard Myers in 1982 in Milton Keynes, LUK. In 1992 he opened Fastbolt Schraubengrosshandels GmbH, in Gronau, Germany. In 2005 Fastbolt opened Fastbolt Trading Shanghai Co. Ltd. in China.
He was active in the British Association of Fastener Distributors.

1982 – Bill Stover, 62-product engineer for Lehigh Metal Products Corp. Previously he had worked for Anchor Fasteners, Lamson & Sessions and Pawtucket.

2008 – Henry Steers II, 84, was in the fastener industry his entire career. He operated his own manufacturing agency for 20 years before selling the business to his son.

2011 – Richard Steier, 96, started in fasteners as a rep for Duo-Fast Northeast in 1951 and worked his way up to company owner.
Born in Austria, and came to the U.S. aboard the Queen Mary following Kristallnacht. He had studied medicine prior to the Nazi takeover of Austria.

2011 – George Kenneth Stevens, 69, owned and operated Valley Fastener Inc. in Batavia, IL, which is now located in West Chicago.

2012 – George Strumbos founded Hi-Lock Fasteners Inc. in 1957. The company became Alpha USA in the 1990s. Over the decades the company has received or applied for 17 patents.
Strumbos and two partners, one of whom was his brother-in-law John Kantgias, started manufacturing in Detroit. They worked the presses at night and made sales calls during the day. Eventually Strumbos and Kantgias bought out the third partner, and over 30 years started several companies.

2018 – John “Jack” Sullivan, 90, co-founded Accurate Fasteners in Boston with childhood friend Jack O’Donoghue in 1960. He was president and chair for its first 50 years.
He was on the National Fastener Distributors Association board from 1981 to 1984 and was technical rep promoting quality standards for many years.  He represented fastener distributors in congressional hearings on the U.S. Fastener Quality Act of 1999. After the FQA became law, he was a leader in promoting and explaining the details of the law.
He was a founder and in 1979 the first president of the New England Fastener Distributors Association. He was elected to its Hall of Fame in 1996.
He was elected to the NIFS Hall of Fame in 1988.

2002 – Luke J. Sullivan, 76. He began his 45-year fastener career working for Woody Kreck at Southern Bolt in Los Angeles. He founded Sullivan Bolt in 1968 in Commerce, CA. He retired upon closing Sullivan Bolt in 1994. He returned to the fastener business by acquiring A-1 Nut & Bolt Co. He retired again upon selling A-1 in 2001.
Sullivan and his wife, Virginia Sullivan, were members of the National Fastener Distributors Association and the Western Association of Fastener Distributors.

2012 – Edward Gerald “Ed” Suma, 64, of Copper State Bolt & Nut Co. He started in fasteners in 1974 with Industrial Bolt and subsequently worked with Southwest Fasteners, A&M and started his own marketing company.

1999 – Tea-Nan Sun, president of Chun Zu Machinery Ind. Co. Ltd. of Taiwan after 40 years in the fastener industry. Chun Zu was founded 25 years ago and he recently presided over the planning and opening of a subsidiary in China.

2015 – Jason Russell Surber, 44, was president of ATF Inc, chairman of EAFM of Mexico and served on the Industrial Fasteners Institute board.
He held a bachelors degree from DePauw University, law degree from John Marshall Law School and an MBA from Northwestern University.

1993 – K.A. Swanstrom, 85, founder and chairman of Penn Engineering & Manufacturing Corp. He began his fastener career after emigrating to the U.S. from Sweden. He became involved with the manufacture and sale of a new wrenchable self-locking nut, and eventually headed that company – Elastic Stop Nut Corporation of America.
After leaving ESNA in the early 1940s, he settled in Eastern Pennsylvania, founded Penn Engineering in 1942, and with three pieces of production equipment in a rented stocking mill, began production in 1943 of another revolutionary type fastener – the self-clinching nut. The “s” nut ushered in a new age of fasteners, which have allowed sheet-metal fabricators to easily and cost effectively provide strong threads in thin sheet metal.
Penn Engineering has grown to a worldwide supplier of products with almost $90 million in sales and over 1,000 employees.

2004 – Benjamin C. “Ben” Taber, 62. He started in fasteners as a sales rep for Lamson & Sessions in Massachusetts. He later was president of Phillips Screw Company and director of mergers & acquisitions for Würth Group. He also operated a manufacturers rep firm, B.C. Taber Co. In recent years he formed the Canterbury Group Inc. to provide merger & acquisition service to fastener companies and was associated with Capital Sales Inc. and EFC International.
He had been a New England Fastener Distributors Association board member and was active in the National Fastener Distributors Association.

2009 – Joseph Francis Taddie, 80, co-founder of Fastener House Inc. in Cleveland. After selling Fastener House he became vice president and sales manager for Universal Fastener Co. in Charlotte. He was an honorary life member of the National Fastener Distributors Association.

2010 – Roy Dean Talley, 61, started his career specifying fasteners for the nuclear power plant being built in Michigan.  In 1976 he founded Talley Fasteners in Kalamazoo.

2010 – Kenneth Thompson Tate, 85, had a 33-year career as general manager of City Supply Co., followed by 10 years as a sales representative for Universal Fastener Corporation.

2008 – Jim Taylor, 63, founder of importer/master distributor East-West Logistics Inc. in 2002. During his fastener career he worked for fastener manufacturer Semblex for 28 years before founding Integrated Material Systems in 1998. IMS was acquired by Questron Technologies, which in turn was acquired by GE Supply Logistics.
He spent years developing suppliers in the Pacific Rim and was a speaker at fastener meetings on China as an emerging market.
He was NFDA associate chair for 1994-95.
He was one of nine members of the U.S. Public Law Task Force, which represented fastener manufacturers, distributors and importers in seeking amendments to the U.S. Fastener Quality Act and developing regulations. He moderated the series of seven PLTF workshops educating the industry on the FQA.

2017 – Michael Terrell, 71, owned Gogel Fastener & Industrial Supply Company of Toledo, OH, and was on the board of Council Tools.

2020 – George Thierjung, 82, founded Astro Punch in 1962. Born in Yugoslavia, as a refugee of World War II at age 13 he and his family immigrated to Los Angeles.  He studied drafting in junior college.  His first job was as a draftsman and machinist at an aerospace company, Gilfillan. He and his brother, Peter Thierjung, who was working at fastener manufacturer Dumont Aviation, founded Astro Tool & Die as a machining company for aerospace companies. Astro expanded to produce tooling.
In 1967 the company became Astro Punch Corporation, which subsequently expanded into automotive, high tech and construction fastener industries. Astro Punch was acquired by Precision Castparts in 1996.

2002 – Mary Thompson, worked for Abbot-Interfast of Wheeling, IL for 22 years.

2013 – Howard Payton Tinney, 59, CEO of Birmingham Fastener, which he founded as a distributorship in 1980. During his tenure the company added nine additional locations, including a manufacturing operation.
Tinney started his career in the warehouse at Southeastern Bolt and Screw, working his way up to sales in the late seventies.
Tinney’s son, Brad Tinney, is president of Birmingham Fastener.

2012 – Elfriede Kunigunda Knobloch Tolley-Beeson, 75. Born in Germany, she and her husband, the late Paul E. Beeson, started Carolina Fasteners in 1969.

2013 – Raul Torres, 77, spent his entire 50-year career in stainless fasteners. He started with Schnitzer Alloys in New Jersey in the 1960’s and then went on to Albany Products, Action Threaded Products and Star Stainless Screw Co.
He had had been a member of the National Fastener Distributors Association board; the Mid-West Fastener Association scholarship committee; and because of his specialized stainless knowledge was involved with ASTM.

1994 – Jack A. Trilling, P.E., 68, was in the fastener industry for 40 years. He began his career with Boeing Airplane Company and then joined Standard Pressed Steel Company (SPS Technologies) in 1955 and served in various capacities, including manager of engineering for Unbrako Division. He then was manager of engineering for Great Lakes Screw Co. He retired in 1990 as director of engineering for Holo-Krome Company and then operated his own consulting firm, Trilling Technical Services. ASTM presented its 1994 Award of Merit to Trilling and he was a fellow in ASME where he had been chair of the B18 committee on standardization of fasteners and chair of the subcommittee on socket products and a member of numerous other fastener committees. He was one of the original members of the Fastener Advisory Council.

2015 – Robert “Bob” Truckey Sr., 85. He and his wife, Colleen, founded Cal Fasteners Inc. in 1975 in California.
Two sons joined him in the business: Robert Truckey Jr. and Joseph Truckey.

2014 – Michael Anthony Tyll, 58, president of the Engineered Fastening division of Stanley Black & Decker since 2010.
He became president of the Black & Decker Corp. automotive division in 2001 and group vice president and president of Black & Decker’s fastening & assembly systems division in 2006.
After graduating from the University of Michigan, his career began in 1980 as a staff accountant in Chesterfield, MI.

2006 – Paul C. Tyson, 70, founder, president and CEO of Tyson Bolt & Supply in Tampa, FL. Tyson started in the fastener industry with Southeastern Bolt & Screw in 1961 and later worked for Southern Screw & Supply in Birmingham. He bought Tampa Bolt & Screw with Fletcher Yielding and they changed the name to House of Threads.
He was a founding member of NFDA.
In 1985 he sold his interest in House of Threads to the Yielding family. He started Tyson Bolt in 1989.

2004 – Frank Valencic, 61, former president of Great Lakes Fasteners in Berea, OH.

2019 – Gordon Vandermeulen, 76. He and his wife, Elaine, acquired Grand Rapids Bolt & Nut in 1976 and retired at the end of 2016 with nearly 41 years in the business. The company was renamed Great Lakes Fasteners & Supply in 1987.

1999 – Bill Vollmer, 77, who in 1958 founded Western Fastener in San Diego. Vollmer and a computer partner invented a computerized inventory control program for the fastener industry.

2013 – Christopher B. Wackrow, 61, a native of England, had been vice president for quality & reliability and vice president of environmental quality at MNP Corporation.

2004 – Bob Walker, 52, of Hayes Bolt & Supply of San Diego. He was a Certified Fastener Specialist.

1998 – Charles T. “Chip” Walker, 39, president of Fasteners Inc. of Denver. He began his fastener career at age 16 as a truck driver for his parents, John & Helen Walker.

2011 – George “Mickey” Walsh, 84, a long-time fastener manufacturer’s rep based in the Southeastern U.S. for decades.

2008 – John C. “Jack” Wasmer, 84, retired CEO and chairman of Lake Erie Screw Corporation.
He worked 43 years at Lake Erie – which was founded by his father, John C. Wasmer Sr. in 1946. His grandfather, Charles L. Wasmer, began at Lamson & Sessions about 1886 and stated United Bolt in 1911.

2005 – Mitch Waters, 69. His fastener career included being sales manager of PakTron; marketing manager of Buildex; project manager of Venture Programs for ITW; president/owner of PTE-Waters Industries Inc; president of Christiana Industries; vice president of sales, ATF Inc.; and the first president and later chairman of ATF’s American/German joint venture, Rifast LLC.

2010 –Emoretta Datwyler Webb, 86, the first woman president of the Southeastern Fastener Association in 1991. Known as “Em” or “Miss D,” she was secretary-treasurer of Webb Bolt & Nut Company of Orlando for 42 years. She married Stan Webb 19 years ago.

1997 – Robert J. Webster, 73, co-founder in 1963 and former president of North East Fasteners Corporation.

2021 – Steve Welch, 65, started his 40-year fastener career in a warehouse and then became an inside salesperson with Service Supply in Tennessee; followed by branch manager roles West Virginia and Ohio and territory sales manager in Tennessee. After a stint as district sales manager for Hillman Fasteners he rejoined Service Supply in South Carolina as territory sales manager and then national accounts sales manager. In 2000 he joined Lindstrom Metric as an outside salesperson and in 2016 he formed rep agency S.A. Welch & Associates.

2018 – Robert Curtis “Curt” Welk, 59, president of Fastening Products of Lancaster, PA, and was the 2nd generation to own and operate the business.

2014 – Greg Westall, 59, spent 30 years in the fastener industry, primarily in the quality and engineering and most recently was quality engineer at Sey Tec. He developed and hosted the first website for the Southwestern Fastener Association.

2011 ­- Nelson Elwood Westlake, 93, of Pickering, Ontario, had been an owner of Cardinal Fasteners of Toronto.

2013 – William Bezaleel “Bill”  Whitmore, 75, a graduate of Newark College of Engineering in New Jersey, he entered the fastener industry and in 1968 was transferred to Southern California by aerospace fastener company Avdel.
He opened Simi Fastening Systems in 1982, and his company continues, led by son-in-law Jamey Hall.

2014 – John Richard “Dick” Wike, 88, was a fastener engineer who designed bolts and screws and held several patents. He retired from Tennessee Bolt & Screw in Memphis.

2020 – Kenneth Lloyd Williams, 92, started as an engineer for Bauer & Shatter.  He founded Universal Punch Corporation to produce fastener tooling and gaging products in 1974.  He holds three patents and also developed Universal’s precision screwdrivers for the medical orthopedic industries.

2015 – Stephen Andrew “Steve” Williams, 58, vice president of marketing department at Winzer Corp.

2011 – Joseph W. Willis Jr., 90, was owner of Livonia, MI-based C&J Fasteners for 35 years.

2008 – Bradley D. “Brad” Wilson, 61, was with Mid-State Nut & Bolt Co. Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, for 37 years and had been president since 1996. He was the 1984-85 president of the National Fastener Distributors Association.

2014 – Wallace E. “Terry” Wing III, 60, president of the Illinois-based rep agency Wing-Hamlin Co. Inc.

2015 – Eymard J. “Ed” Wisnewski, 86, founder of Mobile Fastener Company in 1963, died May 26, 2015.
He recently retired and now his son, Mark Wisnewski, owns and operates the Illinois distributorship.
In addition to selling fasteners, he rode brahma bulls in rodeos.

2013 – James G. Witt, 72, one of the original owners of Global Fastener & Supply.

2012 – Ann Bisgyer Wolz, 56, co-publisher of Fastener Industry News.
A native of New York City, Ann first worked in the fastener industry during high school for her stepfather, Eric Cohn, at Allied International.
After earning a masters degree from George Washington University, her first job was in college administration; then she entered the trade show industry in New York City.
Ann returned to the fastener industry when she and spouse John Wolz acquired FIN in 1994.
In addition to handling the business side of the newsletter, she owned and operated Expo Experts, a trade show management firm. Her trade show and meeting planning expertise aided FIN’s news coverage of industry events.
Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993, she went through numerous treatments to put the disease in remission. In 1997 she presented a program on breast cancer to the Western Association of Fastener Distributors and in 1998 she joined Nancy Roberts of Falcon Metal and Fran Sachs of XL Screw as breast cancer survivor panelists for a National Fastener Distributors Association spouse program.
In 2000 she was diagnosed with a recurrence of breast cancer. Her textbook life expectancy at that point was one to three years. That became the start of 11 years of aggressive chemotherapies, radiation and multiple other treatments, which never stopped her from a full life of managing businesses, travel and family and friends. She was proud to declare, “I’ve lived past my expiration date.”

2010 – Arthur Wondrasek Jr., 69, bought Quality Screw & Nut Co. in 1990 and built the company into one of the largest independent fastener companies in the U.S. He sold Quality Screw to Anixter in 2008.

2014 – Joseph Aloysius “Joe” Woolley, 94, was with Porteous Fastener Co. for many years. He was known as a proud Irishman and sent St. Patrick’s Day cards annually.

2012 – Dick Worcester, 62, was longtime president of S. W. Anderson Co. He started as an outside salesman in 1978 and was soon promoted to vice president and eventually president. Under his leadership, the company grew from two locations to five and he led the company’s efforts to achieve ISO 9001 certification.

2012 – Ruth Young, 80, owned and operated Tidewater Industrial Fasteners in Norfolk, VA, from 1963 to 1989. She was the first woman board member of the National Fastener Distributors Association.

2006 – Alvin H. Zazove, 84, retired vice president of sales for Heads & Threads International.
While stationed in Japan during World War II Zazove met fastener manufacturers and after the war he opened a nut & bolt company with a partner who imported fasteners from Japan.
HTI hired him as vice president of sale in 1960 and he retired in 1990.

2019 – James Paul ”Jim” Zehnder, 84, had alternated the CEO role of Earnest Machine Products Co. with his brother, John. Earnest Machine was founded in 1948 by their father, Paul Zehnder.

2015 – John Zehnder, retired president Earnest Machine, which was founded by his father, Paul Zehnder, in 1948. John started working at Earnest in his teens, before attending Concordia Teachers College and becoming a band director and high school teacher in Chicago for six years.
He returned to Earnest in Cleveland in 1967 as a $3 an hour clerk and advanced through purchasing, reworking orders, sales and at age 32 in 1974 he became president.
He retired in 2011 and was succeeded by his son, Kirk Zehnder.

1997 – Paul Ernest Zehnder, 92, founder of Earnest Machine Products Co. in 1948. He and his brothers established Earnest as a machine shop business. He retired as chairman in the early 1980s.

2012 – Jack Zelinskie, 81, founded Military & Commercial Fasteners in York, PA. His first career was as a Pennsylvania State policeman – with duties including protecting President Eisenhower at his country home in Gettysburg. He started in sales and fasteners with Mil-Spec Fasteners in Baltimore.

1991 – George Zerbel, 74, former owner of Tri-West Products Inc. He bought a small combination screw machine/fastener distribution operation in 1959 and began supping special, production quantity fasteners to automotive OEMs. He sold Tri-West to an investment group headed by Mike Turnbull in 1977.

2008 – William A. Ziegler, 84, started his fastener career with Lamson & Sessions and in 1964 founded Ziegler Bolt & Nut in Canton, OH.

2012 – George C. Zimmerman, 90, of Rhode Island, retired in 1986 as president of Rau Fastener. He was a graduate of the Newark College of Engineering.

2002 – Dorothy Zirkle, 69, former circulation manager for Fastener Technology International. Her spouse, Ray Zirkle, is executive director of the International Fastener Machinery Association.

2017 – W. Tom ZurSchmiede Jr., 90, was CEO of Federal Screw Works from 1970 to 2002 and and chairman for the 39 years preceding his death. Starting as a CPA in 1950 he joined Federal Screw Works in 1950.  As chairman his principal aims were to keep Federal Screw Works independent and to protect employees’ jobs.

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