In the world of social media today, October 4th, 2019, is National Manufacturing Day or MFG day. For us here at Steele, however, every day is manufacturing day! Yes, we are an American manufacturer and very proud of it!
Back in 1958, our company was founded by Lynn Steele. He was a machinist making car parts and go-carts. In the mid-60’s, he made his own molds to make rubber parts when he couldn’t find any for his 1931 Cadillac. From that project, Steele Rubber Products was born. More than 50 years later we still make our own molds, fixtures, inserts for our parts, and many of our tools.
In our tool room, we use classic tools and machines as well as modern, cutting-edge technology like CNC machines to create the molds and dies we need to make our parts. Our employees are some of the most experienced, creative thinkers in the industry and work together every day to make us successful. We aren’t following a pattern or a recipe on Pinterest. We design it, we build it and we perfect it ourselves.
With our parts, like many other things, the devil is in the details and our team members in production are detail pros. From making sure everything is the right temperature and speed at our extruders, to making sure our molded parts are trimmed skillfully. From measuring the exact length of that windshield gasket so it fits perfectly to making sure the pins in our door seals are the correct distance apart, so they pop in effortlessly when you’re installing them. They are the ones that give each part the green light to be offered for sale and eventually shipped to our customers.
In every department, our people are committed to making our parts look and fit as close to the factory original as possible so we can help you restore the car of your dreams. We start from the ground up and control every part of the process- that takes talent, hard work and a team that cares.
We are a family-owned company, and as a manufacturing company, you can bet that the safety of our team members is a top priority. Safe environments as well as constantly trying to improve processes, benefits, opportunities, and work-culture has led to employees who stay longer and are happier. That’s probably why we give out so many service-anniversary awards for 10, 20 or 30+ years and why so many of our people go above and beyond their job duties to help when needed.
In a time where many manufacturers close their facilities in the United States to open them in another country, we are growing ours, right here in Denver, North Carolina! Expanding into additional markets, adding on to what we already offer and making our future full of opportunity.
So, we celebrate this National Manufacturing Day and plan to celebrate many more to come!