Lindbergh Corporation Acquires Heat Treating Facilities from Thermo Terratech

Lindbergh Corp. of Rosemont, IL, has signed an agreement to acquire Thermo Terratech, Inc.'s Heat Treating Services Group. Thermo Terratech operates heat treating facilities in four cities: the Metallurgical Group (Minneapolis, MN), the Metal Treating Group (Milwaukee, WI), and two Cal-Doran facilities in Los Angeles, CA and San Diego, CA. Lindbergh acquired the heat treating services group to complement their existing heat treating facilities that offer such services as annealing, hardening, brazing and nitriding.

Currently, Lindbergh's business is divided into three divisions representing the three sections of the United States as well as a plant located in Monterrey, Mexico. The Western Division consists of three facilities in the Texas/Oklahoma Group and three facilities in the Steel/Titanium Group. The Midwest Division is comprised of the five facilities of the Aerospace/Aluminum Group and the four facilities located in the Chicago/Milwaukee Group. The latter also hosts a Metal Lab for R&D. The Eastern Division is made up of 10 facilities throughout the Eastern United States.

All of the company's groups are capable, on some level, of many different heat treating processes, including those mentioned previously in this article as well as ferritic nitro-carburizing, high-speed steel heat treating, austempering and austempering ductile iron, marquenching, and carbonitriding. To meet the differing needs of its wide base of customers, Lindbergh operates a variety of furnace types and sizes for fast turnaround. Major markets served include aerospace, automotive, light truck and agriculture.

Lindbergh is able to keep its vast empire in synch with the Benchmarks of Quality program. Designed to keep all businesses and their processes uniform, the company has developed procedures, testing and monitoring systems to ensure customers receive the same service in every one of Lindbergh's plants. The soon-to-be former Thermo Terratech facilities will also adopt Benchmarks of Quality procedures.

Coming on the heels of the Thermo Terratech Heat Treating Services Group acquisition was the offer of Miami, FL businessman Ira Sochet to purchase Lindbergh. However, the company's Board of Directors turned down the buyout proposal by one of Lindbergh's major shareholders (Sochet owns 14.5% of the company's 5.7 million outstanding common shares) saying that the Lindbergh is not for sale and its acquisition of Thermo Terratech's Heat Treating Services Group reinforces their commitment to growth.