Arrow Engineering in Rockford celebrates 60 years in enterprise
An engineering firm in Rockford is celebrating a significant milestone in 2023.
Arrow Engineering, 5191 twenty seventh Ave., is celebrating 60 years in enterprise.
The corporate was based in 1963 by Nicholas T. Hawley who ran the corporate till he turned it over to his sons, Tim and Nicholas, in 2000. The brothers ran the operation till February 2022 when it was acquired by Roscoe-based producer All World Equipment.
The corporate makes a speciality of hydraulic and handbook workholding fixtures and has emerged as a pacesetter of CNC workholding within the Midwest.
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“Within the early days, there have been in all probability a dozen good fixtures homes in Rockford,” Tim Hawley mentioned. “As time went on, increasingly huge corporations left the world, and we simply discovered there’s actually a distinct segment for hydraulic fixturing. So, we began calling on extra machine device builders within the Chicago space as a result of, oftentimes, the individuals who provide the machine instruments are in search of the fixturing, the tooling and all the things that goes together with it.”
Arrow Engineering was initially positioned close to the intersection of Broadway and seventh Avenue. The corporate moved to its present 17,000-square foot workplace and machine store advanced within the metropolis’s East Rock Industrial Park in 1985.
Hawley, who at present serves as a producing advisor for Arrow’s guardian firm, mentioned the business has modified fairly a bit over the previous 60 years.
“For my father and for me rising up, designing all the things was on a drafting board,” Hawley mentioned. “Now, all the things is 3D modeling and all the things is 50 occasions sooner than it was once we had been children. I grew up with handbook machines. We didn’t have digital readouts. You’d depend the revolutions on a dial to see how far you’re shifting the place of a machine whereas immediately all the things is a lot extra refined having the ability to manufacture on CNC Machines.”
Arrow Engineering has labored with huge names through the years, based on Hawley. Stanley Black and Decker, Paslode Nail Weapons, Klein Instruments and corporations that provide Harley Davidson are just some of the companies Arrow Engineering has labored with.
Arrow Engineering employs 28 folks, together with six members or relations of the Hawley household. Whereas Hawley’s father is retired now, Tim Hawley nonetheless acknowledges the leap of religion his father took to start out his personal firm.
“My dad is 90 years outdated, and he’s nonetheless received extra power than I’ll ever have,” Hawley mentioned. “He was 31 years outdated when he began this enterprise. I can’t think about being a man 31 years outdated with 4 children, he had simply purchased a brand new home and he left a great job at Sundstrand Aviation to exit on his personal. He’s been nothing however successful story and I’m simply proud to be a part of that.”
Ken DeCoster covers enterprise information and options. Contact him at 815-987-1391, [email protected] or @DeCosterKen.
