Founded in Wisconsin - Waukesha Foundry
A foundry is an old business. It melts metal, pours it into a mold, and ships the part. What makes Waukesha Foundry unusual is how often it changed what it poured and who it poured it for.
Over 114 years it made brass fittings, nickel parts for dairies, aluminum pots, sanitary pumps, stainless steel, aerospace tooling, and defense components.
Its owners included a founder-entrepreneur, a railroad-brake conglomerate, a California holding company, its own managers, a private equity fund, and a Beloit family. The foundry lasted because it kept finding the next hard metallurgy problem that customers would pay to have solved.
The Founder and the Non-Galling Idea (1912–1930s)
Corwin C. ("C.C.") Smith established Waukesha Foundry in 1912 with the objective of producing brass castings. By 1915, Smith identified a growing demand for nickel products among food processors who required "non-galling" alloys to improve sanitation. Galling, a phenomenon where metal surfaces seize without lubrication, could not be addressed with grease in food processing due to the risk of contamination. Smith's strategic insight catered to the needs of Wisconsin’s dairy industry, which frequently encountered this issue. His investment in nickel alloys proved successful, and by the mid-1930s, Waukesha Foundry emerged as the leading producer of nickel-alloy castings in the United States, a significant accomplishment for a relatively young enterprise.
Depression Pivots and the Laboratory Era (1930s–1950s)
The Great Depression prompted innovation, leading the company to diversify into cast aluminum cookware and pump products, catering to industries such as food processing and pharmaceuticals by 1940. The pump line, originating in 1933, played a significant role in subsequent developments. Around 1940, the foundry prioritized metallurgy research, establishing a research and development laboratory in 1940 and a metallurgical laboratory in 1942, with a focus on stainless steel, which saw increased demand in the 1950s. These laboratories developed the WM88, patented in 1954, a durable nickel-based alloy known for its self-lubricating properties and corrosion resistance, compliant with FDA standards for food contact. By the late 1960s, the company evolved beyond a foundry to offer finished equipment, registering trademarks for sanitary pumps and non-galling alloys.
The Conglomerate Years (Abex and Henley, c. 1960s–1989)
During the conglomerate era, Waukesha Foundry became a part of Abex, a rebranded entity from the American Brake Shoe & Foundry Company. Abex was acquired by Illinois Central Industries in 1968 and later merged with Pneumo Corporation in 1978. During the Abex period, the company expanded beyond Waukesha, notably in Watertown, where a $4.3 million, 40,000-square-foot facility was established in 1982 to produce stainless steel castings. This new investment-casting plant, which opened in 1983, incorporated advanced technology, including programmable dipping robots and automated systems, positioning Waukesha Foundry as a leader in automation. During this period, the pump business separated from the foundry, with the Waukesha pump brand experiencing its own series of mergers and ultimately being acquired by SPX in 2001. Despite this separation, both Waukesha companies continue to share a common heritage, an alloy, and a customer base, with Waukesha Cherry-Burrell manufacturing Alloy 88 rotors in their Delavan foundry.
Independence Regained (1989–1999)
In 1989, the management team of Waukesha Foundry, led by Barry Kerwin, Gary W. Evans, and Jeffrey G. Richter, acquired the company from the Henley Group, restoring it to local ownership. This transition came after a period of reduced activity under the previous conglomerate ownership. On January 1, 1999, FCF Partners, a private equity firm, took control of Waukesha Foundry, implementing an expansion strategy through acquisitions, notably acquiring Kramer International in 2003 to enhance its position in the pump market.
By 2012, Waukesha Foundry marked a century of growth with substantial investments in equipment, office renovations, and a restructured labor agreement. The company formed a technology partnership with France's Groupe Allio and secured a significant order from Japan Aeroforge and Kobe Steel. Sales had increased by 40% since 2010, with a diversified product mix focusing on high-alloy ferrous castings for industries such as aerospace, automotive, and defense. The foundry had established a niche in producing cast tooling for aerospace forging presses, reinforcing its presence in the modern market.
A Family Home in Beloit (2014–Present)
United Stars, a family-owned enterprise based in Wisconsin, acquired Waukesha Foundry on September 29, 2014, with Cleary Gull serving as the financial advisor to the seller. This acquisition transitioned the foundry from ownership by financial entities to a family holding company with no predetermined exit strategy. In 2015, United Stars separated the business operations from the real estate by selling the plant to STORE Capital through a sale-leaseback arrangement. During the pandemic, the company obtained a PPP loan to preserve 92 jobs.
Currently, the foundry is capable of casting over 200 alloys and utilizes advanced processes such as robotically milled molds and vacuum melting. It holds certifications including ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100D, facilitating work in the aerospace sector. In 2026, the foundry actively participated in policy advocacy and underwent leadership changes. President Steve Cooke championed the Steel Performance Initiative and hosted significant entities for automation projects. Leadership transitions included the promotion of Todd Kurtz to Senior Sales Executive and Jake Denor to Director of Business Development. Jake Walczak succeeded Cooke as President, reflecting the company’s commitment to promoting leaders from within.
Strategic Review
PESTL Analysis
As of September 2026, Waukesha Foundry operates within a complex external environment influenced by PESTL (political, economic, sociocultural, technological, and legal) factors. Politically, Section 232 tariffs and defense-industrial policies favor domestic specialty foundries. Economically, the fluctuating nickel market, affected by Indonesia's ore quota and the potential impact of El Niño, creates uncertainties in supply and demand. Socioculturally, the industry contends with workforce challenges due to retiring staff and a decrease in younger workers, although internal leadership development remains a strength.
Technologically, the foundry employs advancements such as robotic milling, yet faces competition from additive manufacturing. Legally, adherence to emissions and worker-safety standards, particularly concerning chromium and nickel, is crucial. The foundry's strategy emphasizes automation, advocacy, and leadership development to address these challenges, with key risks including potential nickel price surges, changes in tariffs post-2027, and stricter emissions regulations.
The enduring success of Waukesha Foundry is rooted in solving unique customer problems rather than merely producing goods. Since C.C. Smith's 1915 recognition of specialized metal needs, the company has prospered through six ownership transitions by delivering reliability. Now led by a leader who began his career inspecting castings under X-ray, the foundry continues to capitalize on its core capabilities.
Porter’s Five Forces
Michael Porter's Five Forces framework, introduced in a 1979 Harvard Business Review article and expanded in Competitive Strategy (1980), posits that an industry's long-term profitability is shaped by its structure rather than individual firm performance. The framework identifies five forces that influence the distribution of value within an industry, affecting how much value is retained by the industry versus what is distributed to customers, suppliers, new entrants, or substitutes.
Threat of New Entrants: New competitors are influenced by capital needs, economies of scale, regulations, distribution access, and switching costs.
Bargaining Power of Buyers: Buyers can pressure prices if they are concentrated, price-sensitive, informed, or can easily switch.
Bargaining Power of Suppliers: Suppliers can increase costs if they are concentrated, offer unique inputs, or have few substitutes.
Threat of Substitutes: Alternatives like video calls can limit pricing.
Rivalry Among Existing Competitors: Competition intensifies with many similar competitors, slow growth, high fixed costs, undifferentiated products, or exit barriers.
Industries are considered less attractive when these forces are strong. Strategically, firms should aim to position themselves where these forces are weakest or modify them to their advantage, for instance, by increasing switching costs or establishing entry barriers.
Nonetheless, the framework has limitations. It offers a static perspective that may not account for rapid changes in dynamic industries and excludes complementors, leading some scholars to suggest a "sixth force." Additionally, it emphasizes the industry over the individual firm, making it most effective when used in conjunction with firm-level tools such as VRIO.
Force | Intensity | Rationale |
Threat of new entrants | Low | A new high-alloy foundry needs large capital outlays, environmental permits, metallurgical expertise, and years of customer qualification (AS9100, first-article approvals, 3-A compliance). Nobody builds a greenfield nickel-alloy foundry to compete for a niche worth about $25–40 million. |
Bargaining power of buyers | Moderate to high | Sophisticated OEMs and aerospace forgers can source globally, but once a casting is qualified in a specific alloy and pattern, requalifying elsewhere is costly and risky, especially for WM88 parts. |
Bargaining power of suppliers | Moderate to high | Nickel, molybdenum, chromium, and bismuth are volatile global commodities; melting energy is another exposure. Alloy surcharges pass through some, not all, of the risk. |
Threat of substitutes | Moderate | Fabrication, forging, bar machining, and additive manufacturing compete for some geometries. For large, complex, high-alloy shapes up to 6,000 lb, casting remains the practical choice. |
Competitive rivalry | Moderate | Specialty rivals include Milwaukee’s Stainless Foundry & Engineering and national high-alloy shops; offshore foundries compete on simpler work. Domestic consolidation reduces rivals but also shrinks the shared supplier and labor base. |
Strategy Diamond (Hambrick & Fredrickson)
Donald Hambrick and James Fredrickson's Strategy Diamond clarifies "strategy" by integrating five choices: Arenas (where to compete), Vehicles (how to enter), Differentiators (how to succeed), Staging (pace and sequence of actions), and Economic Logic (how to generate returns). This framework emphasizes coherence, ensuring elements support each other, focusing on internal consistency over industry attractiveness.
Element | Waukesha Foundry |
Arenas | Low-to-mid-volume, high-complexity castings in hard-to-pour alloys for food and dairy equipment, aerospace forging tooling, petrochemical, defense, and pump and valve markets. |
Vehicles | Mostly organic capability building, with selective acquisition and technology partnerships. |
Differentiators | Ownership of WM88, breadth of alloys, size range, vacuum melting, in-house testing, and machining. |
Staging | Add capability first, then enter markets with it. Aerospace tooling and defense follow from metallurgical depth. |
Economic logic | Premium pricing based on technical difficulty and qualification lock-in. |
VRIO Analysis
Jay Barney's VRIO framework, derived from the resource-based view, evaluates firm performance through unique resources: Value (capitalizing on opportunities or mitigating threats), Rarity (distinct among competitors), Imitability (difficult to replicate), and Organization (structured to leverage resource value). It guides firms from competitive disadvantage to sustained advantage, identifying tacit capabilities. VRIO is most effective with external analyses like Five Forces and PESTL, as assessing "value" requires market context.
Resource | Valuable | Rare | Inimitable | Organized | Implication |
WM88 patent heritage & ASTM quality authority | Yes | Yes | Yes (history and standards role can’t be copied) | Yes (on-site gall testing) | Sustained advantage |
200+ alloy metallurgical know-how | Yes | Yes | Largely (tacit, built over decades) | Yes | Sustained advantage |
Vacuum melting, robotic/printed patterning | Yes | Yes | Partially (capital can buy it) | Yes | Temporary advantage |
AS9100D / 3-A qualifications | Yes | Somewhat | No (earnable) | Yes | Parity, but a real entry barrier |
Home-grown leadership bench | Yes | Somewhat | Yes (culture) | Emerging | Potential advantage |
The Flywheel and Seven Powers
Jim Collins introduced the Flywheel concept in Good to Great (2001) and expanded upon it in Turning the Flywheel (2019). Collins discovered that sustainable performance improvements result from consistent efforts, similar to pushing a heavy flywheel that gradually builds momentum. The Flywheel is illustrated as a cycle of interconnected components that drive each other, exemplified by Amazon’s model where lower prices lead to increased customer visits, attracting more sellers and enhancing the customer experience, ultimately enabling further price reductions.
Collins contrasts the Flywheel with the "doom loop," where companies seek quick fixes without building momentum. The Flywheel framework emphasizes consistency over dramatic changes and stresses the importance of understanding the causal logic of the loop to extend it without disruption.
Hamilton Helmer, in 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy (2016), defines "Power" as conditions necessary for sustained differential returns, requiring both a benefit to cash flow and a barrier to competitors. He identifies seven types of Power: scale economies, network economies, counter-positioning, switching costs, branding, cornered resources, and process power. Helmer introduces "Power Progression," which aligns different Powers with various business stages, from origination to stability.
Helmer's framework complements the VRIO model by detailing mechanisms for sustaining competitive advantages, aligning with the Flywheel by explaining why competitors cannot easily replicate successful loops.
Waukesha Foundry's Flywheel
Challenges with hard alloys result in established solutions, such as WM88 for the dairy industry or tooling for aerospace presses. These proven solutions yield qualified part numbers that customers are reluctant to switch from. Qualified parts generate stable, higher-margin revenue, which in turn finances laboratories, vacuum melting, and automation. Enhanced capabilities enable the foundry to tackle more complex issues, perpetuating the cycle. Each change in ownership posed a risk of disrupting this cycle. The foundry's continued success indicates that none of its owners have hindered this process.
Hard problems → Proven solutions → Qualified part numbers → Stable margins → Reinvestment → Harder problems
Seven Powers applied to Waukesha Foundry
Power | Present? | Assessment |
Switching costs | Strong | Requalifying a casting in aerospace or sanitary service costs time, testing, and liability exposure. |
Cornered resource | Partial | The WM88 heritage and the metallurgical workforce are scarce, although the patent itself has long expired. |
Process power | Plausible | Decades of accumulated knowledge about pouring difficult alloys is hard for rivals to replicate. |
Branding | Niche | “Waukesha 88” is a term specifying engineers recognize. |
Scale economies | No | A job-shop foundry gains little from scale. |
Network economies | No | Not applicable to the business model. |
Counter-positioning | No | Not applicable to the business model. |
Waukesha Foundry - SWOT Summary
Strengths | Weaknesses |
WM88 heritage; 200+ alloys; 1–6,000 lb range; vacuum melting; AS9100D; in-house NDT and machining; patient family owner | Small scale; sale-leaseback means the plant is leased, not owned; exposure to commodity alloy prices; leadership turnover in 2026 |
Opportunities | Threats |
Defense industrial-base reshoring; federal automation funding (SPI, ARM); aerospace forging demand; replacing retiring foundry capacity nationwide | Skilled-labor scarcity; energy and environmental compliance costs; additive manufacturing eroding smaller geometries; offshore price competition |
Waukesha Foundry’s history teaches something that entrepreneurship students often miss: the durable asset is the problem you solve, not the product you make. Brass, aluminum pots, and even pumps came and went. What stayed was C.C. Smith’s 1915 recognition that some customers need metal that behaves in ways ordinary metal doesn’t, and that those customers will pay for reliability. Six ownership regimes later, the company is still selling that capability. It is now led by someone who began his career examining castings under X-ray.
Sources
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