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NEBRASKA
ALUMINUM CASTINGS
Born tough, this Hastings-based die caster seems impervious to
economic upheavel and war
From a political and ideological standpoint, starting up a new
business in the mid-1970s may have seemed as sensible as building a
glass house in Parkfield, California, home of the San Andreas
earthquake: on August 9, 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned
after a prolonged struggle with Watergate.
"Our long national nightmare is over," said Gerald Ford after taking
the oath of office, "our Constitution works."
For a decade napalmed jungles and carpet bombing had ripped through
many American minds, and Ford, having replaced a tax-evading Spiro
Agnew in 1973 as Vice President, witnessed in his ninth month of
presidential labor the falling of Saigon and with it a few
impervious dreams of political and entrepreneurial stability in the
United States. Yet, as witnessed after the Kennedy Assassination of
'63 and the recent horrific attack on the World Trade Center towers,
American resolve rekindled the flame of democratic passion it was
most famous for in Boston in 1775 and Pearl Harbor in 1941.
"It was a nervous time," George Hasley said of his company's
founding in 1975, "but I was preoccupied with getting things going
here, getting the business organized. Starting a business in itself
is a nervous time, so you overlook a lot of things."
Hasley is CEO and vice president of Hastings-based Nebraska
Aluminum Castings (NAC). With his wife and company president
Elisabeth, Hasley founded the company under the dark skies of
antigovernment sentiment. It didn't take long for those skies to
brighten, both in Washington D.C. and Hastings, Nebraska. "We picked
an area where we could meet the needs of manufacturers in the states
surrounding us," Hasley said. "We aimed at being the best we could
be."
In its most basic definition, NAC manufactures custom aluminum
castings using mainly the ubiquitous 383.1 alloy, though it does
make available 380 and 360 aluminum alloys. The company refers to
itself as a "full service" die caster in a region that stretches
from Canada to Texas, from Colorado to Illinois.
The company, 26 years strong, still leans toward more medium and
short runs rather than long ones while serving the agriculture,
automotive, construction, transportation, recreation and petroleum
industries.
No one else in Nebraska does what NAC does, and probably less than a
handful of other custom aluminum die casters in the Midwest could
come close to emulating the company's success. With a staff of 70
supporting CNC equipment and a few "special" services, the company
maintains a philosophy of reinvesting in its employees and equipment
and remains ever vigilant in the expansion of its regional customer
base.
But it wasn't always like that.
WHEN APPLES WERE STILL FOOD
In April of 1976, Steven Wozniak and Steven Jobs scrambled to sell
the first fruits of their labor, the Apple computer. The previous
year George and Elisabeth Hasley began to mold an aluminum die
casting business inside a 14,000-square-foot building-two examples
of how the sowing of small seeds should never be underestimated.
"Even in the beginning," Hasley said, "we knew we didn't want to
turn out castings like everyone else-we just didn't want to wear out
equipment. Building customers was what we aimed at from the start."
That said, the company has produced more than 25 million pounds of
castings the past two and a half decades.
Over the years the Hasleys and NAC have kept their word; they don't
turn out castings like everyone else and they treat their employees
and customers the way they want to be treated themselves. And the
company's growth hasn't affected the in-house policy of giving the
customer customized castings at a fair price along with a delivery
date that may as well be carved in stone. All one has to do is read
the NAC mission statement:
"Our mission as a custom aluminum die caster is to earn a profit and
build our future by providing our OEM customers competitively
priced, high-quality die castings that are produced to the customers
exacting specifications and delivered on schedule."
MORE S P A C E, MORE MACHINES
Today the company operates amid 77,000 square feet that's housed
with an army of die casting machines, hydraulic trim presses,
melting and holding furnaces, spindle gang drills, tapping machines,
drill presses, finishing mills, machining and turning center, lathes
and coordinate measuring machines. The company also uses an array of
CAD/CAM programs to develop molds, machine setups as well as in
other production processes.
Two special "weapons" the company keeps in its arsenal in the war to
expand customer service are Loctite® impregnation and real-time
X-rays.
"Inspecting with the X-rays," Hasley said, "amounts to looking
inside castings in a nondestructive way via images on a TV screen
for porosity and other possible flaws. Some castings demand 100
percent inspection."
The company's Loctite Impregnation Center is a little more
complicated. In layman's terms it's the station where castings with
porosity are submerged into a viscid, anaerobic resin (not so unlike
super glue) where the forming of a vacuum occurs. The microscopic
holes in the casting will have "sucked" the resin into the casting
and once the casting is rinsed and allowed to dry, the resin hardens
and seals any potential fluid from leaking out, especially when the
casting is exposed to pressure. "We believe our machining
capabilities, our Impregnation Center and our quality tends to draw
customers to us," Hasley said. "Once that occurs, they soon find out
about our favorable pricing and our living up to timely deliveries."
CERTIFIED FOR GROWTH
Last June, the company became QS 9000, ISO 9002 certified.
"We decided to go with the QS 9000, which is a more stringent
automotive standard," Hasley said. "We did that hoping it would
differentiate us a little more, make us more distinct."
As far as expansion, Hasley's quick to point out that it's already
part of the game plan. "We're looking at further expanding our
customer base, and we've already begun doing that. Our future plans
include more equipment improvements and keeping our nose to the
grindstone here in Hastings."
That grindstone just got harder to move. Due to the recent tragedy
in New York, global enterprise has experienced a serious hiccup.
"Our competitors are global companies," Hasley said. "After the
recent tragedy, businesses are now re-evaluating their supply
lines-what seemed simple once now needs rethinking.
"What we don't do is sell a commodity, so to speak. Mold designs may
take up to four or five months, maybe longer. So if you have a
supplier oversees you can't just pickup and go elsewhere. Probably
today more than ever companies are evaluating the marriage of their
unsecured supply lines."
Two relationships that contributed to the success of the company are
its quality employees and loyal customers, customers who have always
known what to expect from their Hastings supplier.
"I would like to think we stand out as a value added supplier of die
castings," Hasley said. "Dock to stock so to speak. We're not just
heavily involved in die casting; we've taken the full-service
approach to business. It's what our customers expect and deserve."
Hastings-based Nebraska Aluminum Castings is located 15 miles south
of Interstate 80. The city offers a commerically served regional
airport, dockside rail service and several trucking lines.
NEBRASKA ALUMINUM CASTINGS
Box 2007
4280 E Hadco Road Hastings, Nebraska 68902-2007
402-462-5139 Fax: 402-462-4383
www.nealuminum.com info@nealuminum.com
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