Greg’s retirement marks the end of over 49 years working full time as a toolmaker and manager in the skilled trades in Dayton. Greg started his career immediately after graduating from high school in 1973.
The unique twist in Greg’s story is that the start of his apprenticeship was at Vulcan Tool Company, just down the hill from Belmont High School. Greg finished his four year apprenticeship and worked at Vulcan for a few more years before moving on to other companies in Dayton such as Gem City Engineering, Beta Industries and Royer Technologies. He eventually joined Paradigm Industrial in 2017 when we acquired Royer Technologies, where he ran the day to day operations for an absentee owner.
Over all of his years in the trade he maintained ties with former coworkers at Vulcan. When we acquired the assets of Royer in 2017 we also inherited the relationship that Greg continued to nurture as a vendor to Vulcan for their precision machining.
Vulcan Tool Company was established in 1916 and once boasted a 300 man tool shop. Advertised as “Your Tool Room in Dayton”, hundreds of machinists have been trained at Vulcan over the years. When it comes to toolmaking in Dayton, Vulcan has had an outsized impact. However, time and a changing business environment took their toll and by late 2019 sales were only a small fraction of what they once had been, there were only 7 employees at Vulcan, and the owners were close to closing the doors.
The relationship that Greg had maintained as a key vendor for so many years led the owners to approach Paradigm Industrial to see if we had an interest in purchasing the assets of Vulcan Tool or the Vulcan Tool Building (the former Dayton Street Railway Trolley Barn on Lorain Avenue). We did, and as a result of the ensuing acquisition, Greg became the General Manager of a consolidated facility doing business as Vulcan Tool Company.
Over the past two years, under the cloud of a pandemic, Greg has overseen the transformation of Vulcan’s physical plant that had been ill-maintained for almost three decades and the machine shop that has not seen a new piece of equipment in nearly the same amount of time. Today we utilize the latest software and top of the line CNC equipment alongside mills, lathes and grinders that have served generations of machinists. Greg has also continued to mentor and develop the next generation of toolmakers, skilled tradesmen, and manufacturing supervisors and managers. And, of course, he has never stopped providing new and innovative solutions for our customers.
When Greg retires this summer he may not physically be at the shop every day, but his presence will still be felt as we continue to see glimpses of his impact on the facility, his co-workers and our customers for many years to come.
Greg started in the trade when manufacturing was still booming in Dayton. He has worked diligently over nearly half a century while experiencing first hand the impacts of technology and globalization that made others believe there was no future in making things here. Because of Greg, and others like him, manufacturing has stayed alive in Dayton and is growing today.
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