| CoorsTek, Inc. | |
| Type: | Private |
| Area Served: | Worldwide |
| Industry: | Technical Ceramics for semiconductor, automotive, medical, oil and gas and many other industries |
| Products: | Engineered Ceramics |
| Revenue: | US$820 million (estimate)[1] |
| Owner: | The Coors family |
| Num Employees: | 5,900 (2015) |
| Foundation: | , Golden, Colorado, U.S. |
| Location City: | Golden, CO |
| Location Country: | United States |
| Locations: | 61 |
CoorsTek, Inc. is a privately owned manufacturer of technical ceramics for aerospace, automotive, chemical, electronics, medical, metallurgical, oil and gas, semiconductor and many other industries. CoorsTek headquarters and primary factories are located in Golden, Colorado, US. The company is wholly owned by Keystone Holdings LLC, a trust of the Coors family. John K. Coors,[2] a great-grandson of founder and brewing magnate Adolph Coors Sr., and the fifth and youngest son of longtime chairman and president Joseph Coors, retired as president and chairman in January 2020 after 22 years at the helm.
Prussian-born Adolph Coors (1847–1929) opened the Colorado Glass Works in 1887 to manufacture beer bottles for his brewery, the Adolph Coors Brewing Company, west of Denver. In 1888, the glass works, incorporated as Coors, Binder & Co., was idled by a strike and never re-opened.[3] , [4] The Glass Works was leased to
Austrian-born John J. Herold (1871-1923) incorporated the Herold China and Pottery Company in 1910 on the site at 600 Ninth Street in Golden.[5] Herold used clay from nearby mines to make dinnerware and heat-resistant porcelain ovenware under the trademark Herold Fireproof China, with financial support from Coors.[6]
The now-abandoned clay pits form the western boundary of the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) campus. CSM professor Herman Fleck helped Herold perfect his glazing technique.[7] Adolph Coors became the majority stockholder and was elected to the board of directors of Herold China in 1912.
John Herold resigned in 1912 due to tuberculosis and other health concerns, and Adolph Coors Company acquired Herold China in 1914. Herold returned later in 1914 to manage the plant, but left permanently in 1915 for the Guernsey Earthenware Co. in Cambridge, OH. Adolph Coors II (1884-1970) was the first vice-president (VP) and general manager (GM). CSM evaluated Fireproof China for industrial applications in 1914, and found it suitable.
The company began producing chemical porcelain in 1915 as a result of a World War I embargo on German imports. Adolph Coors' third son, Herman F. Coors (1890-1967), was named manager in 1916. Employment increased from 37 employees in 1915 to 75 in 1917. Herold China was renamed Coors Porcelain Company in 1920, and the trademark "Coors U.S.A." was first used.[8] The Rocky Mountain Bottle Company, maker of Coors beer bottles in nearby Wheat Ridge and a joint venture with Owens-Brockway Glass Container Inc., came long after Coors, Binder & Co., and has never been affiliated with Coors Porcelain.[9]
After World War I, Coors Porcelain made fine china and cookware bearing the trademarks Rosebud, Glencoe Thermo-Porcelain, Coorado, Mello-Tone and others.[3] During Prohibition, the ceramic business was largely what kept the parent company afloat.
The original factory site at 600 Ninth Street in Golden was the only Coors Porcelain facility until the 1970s, and remained the company headquarters until a new facility was built northeast of Golden in the early 1990s. The 440000square feet Ninth St. plant consists of several adjoining buildings that occupy four square blocks, and was CoorsTek's largest manufacturing site until it closed in 2021.
Herman Frederick Coors managed the company in the early days. Herman's older brother, Grover Cleveland Coors (1888-1954), began the fledgling company's foray into ceramic technology by inventing a tool for forming spark plug insulation in 1919.[10] Chemist Harold W. Ryland (1881-1966) was hired in 1923, and worked his way up to GM and VP of Porcelain and mayor of Golden 1939-45 before his 1957 retirement.[11] Germany became competitive once again in 1926, and put downward pressure on Coors' chemical porcelain business. Adolph I's death in 1929 put Adolph II solely in charge of the idled A. Coors Co. brewery and Porcelain both, until his sons Adolph III, Bill and Joe joined in the 1940s.
Herman Coors offered to buy Porcelain in the early 1920s after frequent management disagreements with his father and older brother, but was refused. Herman left in 1922[12] to develop clays mined by the Alberhill Coal and Clay Company for use in china that could compete with imports. He started the H.F. Coors China Company, a manufacturer of dishes for restaurants and institutional use, in Inglewood, CA, in 1925. Grover also had friction with Adolph Jr., left for California in 1924, and eventually became a representative for the brewery there.
The H.F. Coors pottery's trademarks include Coorsite, Alox flatware and Chefsware. Herman retired from Coors China in 1946, and was succeeded by his son Robert M. Coors (1920-2004). Robert's brother Dallas Morse Coors (1917-1996) was the VP. Robert retired in 1978, and sold the 125-employee company to Standex International Corporation.[13] , [14]
Standex was preparing to shut down Coors China and sell its property for redevelopment circa 2003. Mug-maker Catalina China Inc. of Tucson, AZ, acquired the assets of Coors China from Standex, and moved the company to Tucson in 100 truckloads over a two-month span in 2003. The assets included a 200-ft-long gas-fired tunnel kiln purchased in 1988 that was transported in 19 sections.[15] Coors China is not now nor has it ever been a subsidiary of CoorsTek or Adolph Coors Company, although it was a competitor of Porcelain in its early days.
In the 1950s, Coors Porcelain's parent company investigated the possibility of replacing steel beverage cans with aluminum ones, as part of a closed-loop recycling system. The effort was the brainchild of W.K. "Bill" Coors (1916-2018), the second son of Adolph II[16] and the vice-president of Porcelain.
A Porcelain warehouse at the corner of Ninth St. and Washington Ave. in Golden was selected to house the pilot plant for the aluminum can line.[17] The first aluminum beer can was produced at the site on January 22, 1959. The closed-loop recycling program was initially started in 1960, but the overwhelming public response and lack of recycling infrastructure delayed its complete implementation.
In 1970, Coors resumed their ambitious and aggressive program called "Cash for Cans", which operated throughout Coors' 11-state marketing area offering a penny a can. Coors success with the aluminum industry was a critical breakthrough in the development of America's recycling market and collection infrastructure. B.L. "Bob" Mornin (1924-1992), a ceramic engineer at Coors Porcelain since 1954,[18] was appointed manager of can production in 1963, and led it to profitability.[19]
The can operation eventually outgrew the Porcelain building and moved into its present location east of the brewery in 1966. The can, end and bottle factories were jointly managed by Joe Coors as Coors Container Company from 1971 to 1981. Coors Brewing Company reorganized its 340-employee can, end and tab operations into a joint venture with the Ball Corporation in 2002, known as Rocky Mountain Metal Container LLC., [20] Coors Ceramics began developing hot-pressed SiC-whisker-reinforced Al2O3 ceramic tooling for beverage can machinery in the 1990s.[21]
On January 22, 2009, the original Coors can plant was named an ASM Historical Landmark by the Board of Trustees of ASM International, for its role in ushering in the age of recyclable aluminum beverage containers.[22] The date marked the 50th anniversary of Coors' first aluminum can. The building is on the southwest corner of the CoorsTek complex at 600 Ninth St in Golden.
The company gradually diversified its lines of technical ceramics before and especially after World War II. Bob Mornin was promoted to production superintendent in 1958.[23] The factory was enlarged by 40,000 ft2 in 1960.[24] Coors greatly expanded its product lines, reduced scrap and accelerated production with the aid of cold isostatic pressing in the 1940s; metallizing, tape casting and hot isostatic pressing in the 1950s; and multilayer ceramic capacitors in the 1960s. A four-story high, 32-ft diameter spray dryer with 5000 lb/hr capacity was installed in 1962.[25]
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory awarded Coors a 2-year contract in 1963 to produce enriched urania-beryllia fuel elements for Project Pluto's Tory II-C nuclear ramjet engine, which increased employment by 230 to a then-record 1100 total.[26] High-alumina (85 to 99.9% Al2O3) ceramics replaced porcelain (mixed-oxide ceramics, e.g., mullite) in many thermomechanical, electrical and chemical applications. Coors engineers Vlad Wolkodoff[27] and Bob Weaver invented fully dense, glass-free 99.5+% Al2O3 ceramics in 1964, useful for many applications where porcelain is deficient.[28] , [29]
Growth in the 1970s enabled Coors to build the 150,000 ft2 electronic ceramics Clear Creek Valley Plant east of Golden in 1970,[30] and its first facility outside of Golden, an electronic substrate plant in Grand Junction, CO, in 1975.[31] Coors made its first purchase of a competitor when it bought Wilbanks Inc. of Hillsboro, OR, in 1973.[32] Two more competitors—Research Instrument Co. of Norman, OK, and Alumina Ceramics Inc. of Benton, AR—were acquired in 1975 and '76, resp.[33] Coors opened its first foreign factory in Glenrothes, Scotland, in 1981.[34] Two more foreign subsidiaries were acquired in the early 1980s, an electronic ceramics plant in Singapore and a paper-tooling plant in Brazil. Coors began making silicon carbide, silicon nitride, spinel, zirconia and several other ceramic products by the mid-1980s.
Joseph "Joe" Coors Sr. (1917–2003), third son of Adolph II, joined Porcelain in 1940 after graduation from Cornell University and stints at DuPont and National Dairy Products Corp.[35] He was promoted to president in 1946, and became a member of the board of directors and an executive of Adolph Coors Company as well in 1952. Joe was named a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) in 1967,[36] and an Honorary Member of ACerS in 1985.[37]
Coors Porcelain was renamed Coors Ceramics Company in 1986, shortly after Joseph Coors Jr. (1942-2016),[38] , [39] succeeded R. Derald Whiting (1923-1995) as president.[40] At the time, porcelain was a small part of the 12-plant, 2200-employee company's output. High-alumina ceramics were and remain the company's primary products. Joe Jr., a mathematician and quality engineer, had been at Wilbanks 1973-84 and was its president 1980–84, and the vice-president for quality at Coors Porcelain 1984-5 prior to his promotion.[41] Joe Jr. promptly reorganized the company into two divisions, Electronic and Structural.
Janet H. Coors (1912-1994), widow of Herman Coors, endowed the Colorado Center for Advanced Ceramics (CCAC) at the Colorado School of Mines in 1988 with $2 million, and established the H.F. Coors Distinguished Professor of Ceramic Engineering chair.[42] Coors executive David G. Wirth Jr. (1937-2017), was appointed as the first director of CCAC. Dennis W. Readey left the Ohio State University to become the first Coors Professor and succeeded Wirth as director of CCAC.[43] Readey, a Fellow of ACerS, served as president of ACerS in 1991–2, and was named a Distinguished Life Member of ACerS in 2002.[44] Upon his retirement, Readey was succeeded as Coors Professor by Nigel Sammes, and as director of CCAC by Ivar Reimanis. Reimanis was promoted to the Coors Chair in 2012 upon Sammes' retirement.[45] Geoff Brennecka was awarded the Coors Chair in 2022.[46]
John Coors earned his B.Sc. in chemical engineering at CSM in 1977, the first of eleven Coors family members to graduate from Mines as of 2014.[7] W. Grover Coors, a brother of John, earned his Ph.D. at CSM in 2001[47] and has been a research professor in CCAC as well as an employee of CoorsTek.[48] VP Doug Coors holds a B.Sc. in Engineering Physics, Co-CEO Michael Coors holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, and Co-CEO Timothy Coors (son of Jeff) a B.Sc. in Chemical and Petroleum Refining Engineering, from Mines. Michael was appointed to the Mines Board of Trustees by Gov. Jared Polis in Jan 2024.[49]
CoorsTek endowed CSM with $26.9 million, the largest in Mines' history, for the construction of the CoorsTek Center for Applied Science and Engineering, in September 2014. Ground was broken for the new 95,000 sq. ft. (8800 m2) building on 2 May 2016 on the former site of Meyer Hall, the home of the physics department. CoorsTek employed about 50 CSM alumni at the time of the announcement.[7] ,[50]
Adolph Coors Company became a holding company in 1989, with Coors Brewing Company as its largest subsidiary. The non-brewing subsidiaries were spun off late in 1992 under a new holding company, ACX Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: ACX), with Bill Coors as chairman of both holding companies.[35] The key subsidiaries of ACX were Coors Ceramics Co.; Graphic Packaging International Inc., with Joe Jr.'s younger brother J.H. "Jeff" Coors as chairman and president; Golden Technologies Company (GTC), a collection of R&D projects headed by former Wilbanks executive Dean Rulis; and Golden Aluminum Company, with Joe Jr. as its interim president.[51]
Most of the ceramics-related GTC projects were folded into Coors Ceramics, while others were sold to investors or shut down with the demise of GTC in the late 1990s. Golden Aluminum was sold to Alcoa in 1999,[52] and is now an independent remelter and rolling mill in Fort Lupton, CO. Graphic Pkg., previously Coors Packaging Co. 1974–88, merged with Riverwood International Corp. in 2003[53] and moved its headquarters to suburban Atlanta,[54] but kept a 250-employee plant in Golden until 2010 that supplied paperboard packaging for Coors beer.[55]
ACX and Adolph Coors Co. had many common stockholders including the Coors family, but were otherwise entirely independent of one another. Coors Ceramics Co. was no longer affiliated with the Coors brewery. Coors Ceramics' headquarters moved from Ninth St. in Golden to a new building in the Coors Technology Center in an unincorporated area northeast of Golden.[56] , [57]
In an effort to broaden its business beyond mostly structural and insulating ceramics, Coors Ceramics made several acquisitions in the late 1990s, especially of suppliers to the semiconductor industry. Coors acquired plastics manufacturer Tetrafluor Inc. of El Segundo, CA, in August 1997 for $15.8 million. Coors bought precision machine shops Edwards Enterprises of Newark, CA, and Precision Technologies of Livermore, CA, in March 1998 for $18M and $22M, respectively. Coors acquired ceramic maker Doo Young Semitek Co., Ltd., of Kyungbook, South Korea, for $3.6M in December 1999. Coors purchased machine shop Liberty Machine Inc. of Fremont, CA, for $4M in March 2000.[58]
In 1993, Coors sold circuit board manufacturer Microlithics Corp. to VisiCom Laboratories, and its ceramic subsidiaries in Ocean Springs, MS and Rio Claro, São Paulo, Brazil to undisclosed buyers. CoorsTek bought BAE Systems' 105-employee, 106,000-ft2 Advanced Ceramics in Vista, CA, in 2011 for $7M, and added product lines in body armor, helicopter seat plating and ceramic heaters.[59] In September 2013 CoorsTek purchased Innovative Medical Device Solutions (IMDS) of Fort Worth, TX, for an undisclosed amount, merged it with C5 Medical Werks of Colorado, and created a new subsidiary, CoorsTek Medical LLC.[60]
In 2000, ACX was dissolved and Coors Ceramics became an independent, publicly traded company under the name CoorsTek, Inc.[61] , [62] Annual revenue was $334M and an operating loss of $32M was reported for 1999.[63] CoorsTek was traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol CRTK. Joe Jr. retired as chairman of CoorsTek in 2000, and was succeeded by his younger brother John (b. 1956).[64] John had been president since Oct 1998.[65] Revenue jumped to $540M in 2000, with record operating income of $58.0M.[66] Worldwide employment declined in 2001 from 4200 at the beginning of the year to 2400 in mid-2002, due largely to a semiconductor industry slump.[67] Keystone Holdings LLC, a trust of the Coors family that owned 27% of CoorsTek stock, bought the remaining 73% it did not already own, and took the company private once again in 2003.[68]
John Coors had been the president of Golden Genesis Corp. (GGC), a manufacturer of photovoltaic devices for solar power collection in Scottsdale, AZ. ACX owned 55% of GGC stock (Nasdaq: GGGO), which it sold to Kyocera Solar Inc. in 1999 for $30M.[69]
CoorsTek signed an agreement in June 2010 to buy certain assets of the Advanced Ceramics division of the French conglomerate Saint-Gobain.[70] , [71] The Advanced Ceramics division employed 1200 workers worldwide, and 500 at six North American sites, at the time. CoorsTek gained ownership of several longtime competing brands, such as Cerbec Si3N4 bearings, Solcera and Cerastat. The transaction was completed in January 2011, with CoorsTek assuming ownership of six plants in Europe; four in the USA; one each in Canada, Mexico and Brazil; and sales offices in Japan, China, Taiwan and Singapore. The acquisition gave CoorsTek a total of 44 facilities on four continents, and increased capabilities in SiC, Si3N4, mullite and steatite.[72] Compagnie de Saint-Gobain retained ownership of its 22 High-Performance Refractories, Lo-Mass, Carborundum Abrasive Products and Hexoloy SiC products business sites.
CoorsTek acquired Covalent Materials Corp., formerly Toshiba Ceramics Co., and its three factories in Japan in December 2014 for ~$450M, the largest acquisition in CoorsTek's history.[63] The transaction gave CoorsTek over 50 production facilities in 14 countries on four continents, with over 6,000 employees. Covalent began as Toyo Fire Brick Company in 1918 in Tokyo, and later became Toshiba Refractories Co. Toshiba Refractories merged with Toshiba Denko to become Toshiba Ceramics Co., Ltd., in 1968, with factories in Oguni, Yamagata; Hatano, Kanagawa; and Kariya, Aichi. Covalent's product line includes crucibles, heating elements, refractory bricks, and components for the semiconductor and flat panel display industries, made of silicon carbide, boron carbide, alumina, graphite, yttria and silicon. Its trademarks include Cerasic, Sapphal, Exyria, Glassun, Neobone and Ceraphite.[73] The crucibles business was sold to Momentive Technologies in 2022.
CoorsTek revenues increased to $1.25 billion since the Coors family-owned Keystone Trust bought all the stock in 2003. CoorsTek claims it has turned a net profit every single quarter since then. Forbes magazine estimated that CoorsTek's cash flow reached $340 million in 2015. CoorsTek was worth an estimated $2.5 billion in 2015, about $200M more than the family's 16% stake in the brewery.[63]
Production was discontinued at CoorsTek's original site at 600 Ninth St. in Golden in 2021. The company plans to redevelop the property into its world headquarters and other commercial uses.[74]
CoorsTek sold the crucibles business from the Covalent acquisition to Momentive Technologies Inc. of Strongsville, Ohio, in 2022.[75]
| Benton, AR | Formerly Alumina Ceramics, Inc.[80] Alumina and reaction-bonded SiC seal rings. |
| Fremont, CA | Formerly Liberty Machine Inc. |
| Vista, CA | Formerly BAE Systems[81] and Cercom Inc. |
| Arvada, CO | CoorsTek Specialty Chemicals; formerly Boulder Ionics.[82] |
| Golden, CO - 9th & Washington | Alumina and porcelain lab wares. |
| Golden, CO - Denver West, McIntyre and N. Table Mtn. | Headquarters, R&D, HIP, injection moulding. |
| Golden, CO - Clear Creek Valley Plant | Analytical lab, tape-cast substrates, metallizing. |
| Golden, CO | Outlast Technologies LLC. Temperature-regulating textiles. |
| Grand Junction, CO | Formerly C5 Medical Werks, now the Bioceramics part of CoorsTek Medical LLC.[83] |
| Grand Junction, CO | Thick-film 96% alumina substrates, fiber-optic ferrules, micro-extrusions.[84] , [85] |
| East Granby, CT | Formerly Norton Co. Si3N4 bearings. |
| Lexington, KY | Avon Protection. Body and aircraft armor. Acquired in 2023. |
| Worcester, MA | Originally Norton Emery Wheel Co. |
| Milford, NH | Formerly Norton Co. PbMgNbO3 igniters. |
| Oklahoma City, OK | Formerly RI Ceramic Co. of Norman, OK, and HB Co. Alumina pump components. |
| Tulsa, OK | Tulsa Machine Works & Manufacturing |
| Hillsboro, OR | Formerly Wilbanks, Inc. Alumina tooling for paper mills and metrology. |
| Oak Ridge, TN | Formerly Coors Technical Ceramics Co.[86] |
| Austin, Houston[87] and Odessa, TX | Petrochemical, oil and gas hardware and services. |
| Salt Lake City, UT | Ceramatec, Inc.[88] |
| Edmonton, AB, Canada | Petrochemical, oil and gas hardware |
| Cambridge, ON, Canada | BLS Textiles, Inc.[89] |
| London, ON, Canada | Formerly Advance Manufacturing Technologies ULC (AMT)[90] |
| Ottawa, ON, Canada | DEW Engineering and Development Ltd.[91] |
| Paris, ON, Canada | CoorsTek Advanced Ceramics Hamilton ULC, foundry filters, formerly Hamilton Pottery Co. |
| Tampere, Finland | CoorsTek Sensors; formerly Pegasor, Oy. |
| Bindlach, Bavaria, Germany | ANCeram GmbH & Co. KG[92] , [93] |
| Lauf an der Pegnitz, Bavaria, Germany | Formerly Stettner & Co. GmbH. Steatite «(MgO)3(SiO2)4» products. |
| Mönchengladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany | Formerly Carborundum Abrasives. |
| Oguno, Yamagata; Hatano, Kanagawa; and Kariya, Aichi, Japan | Formerly Covalent Materials Corp., Toshiba Ceramics Co. Electronic ceramics, R&D and refractories. |
| Tokyo; Tokuyama, Yamaguchi; and Nagasaki, Japan | Formerly Saint-Gobain. Japan HQ, quartz glass and photomask substrates. |
| Gumi City, Korea | CoorsTek Korea[94] |
| Kyungbook, Korea | Formerly Doo Young Semitek Co., Ltd. |
| Seongnam, Korea | Motor actuator assemblies. |
| San Luis Potosí, Mexico | Formerly Saint-Gobain. Inspection and assembly of igniters and silicon nitride bearings. |
| Uden, Netherlands | Formerly the ceramics operation of Philips.[95] European R&D center.[96] |
| Robertsfors, Sweden | Large-scale silicon nitride balls. |
| Rayong, Thailand | CoorsTek Advanced Materials (Thailand) Co., Ltd., a 400,000-ft2 factory that opened in 2022.[97] , [98] , [99] |
| Crewe, Cheshire, England, UK | Dynamic-Ceramic Ltd.[100] Petrochemical, oil and gas hardware.[101] |
| Manchester, England, UK | Flowguard hydro-pneumatic pressure vessels, pulsation dampeners, suction stabilizers and surge absorbers.[102] |
| Alpha Optical Systems Inc. | Ocean Springs, MS | Spinel radomes |
| Ceram Corp.[103] , [104] | El Cajon, CA | Grinding wheels |
| Ceramicon Designs Ltd.[105] , [106] | Golden, CO | Ceramic golf club heads |
| Cercom, Inc.[107] , [108] (Re-acquired as BAE in 2011.) | Vista, CA | Body armor, helicopter seat plating and ceramic heaters |
| Coban Industrial Ltda. (Moved to Vinhedo in 2004, re-acquired as part of S-G in 2010.) | Rio Claro, SP, Brazil | Pulp and paper tooling |
| Coors Biomedical Co. | Lakewood, CO | Dental crowns |
| Coors Ceramics Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. | Singapore | Electronic ceramics |
| Coors Ceramics U.K., Ltd. | Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland, UK | Thick- and thin-film substrates.[109] CoorsTek's first foreign subsidiary, in 1981. Formerly VZS-Seagoe Advanced Ceramics Ltd.[110] |
| Coors Components, Inc.[111] (Sold in 1987.) | Broomfield, CO | Capacitors |
| Coors Electronic Package Co.[112] , [113] | Chattanooga, TN | CERDIPs |
| Coors Optical Systems Co.[114] | Golden, CO | Spinel radomes |
| CoorsTek Medical LLC.[115] Formerly IMDS. | Fort Worth, TX | Medical implants |
| Gaiser Precision Bonding Tools (Closed in 2019.)[116] | Ventura, CA | Ceramic capillaries and nozzles |
| Humphreys Investment Co. | Denver, CO | Spiral separators |
| MicroLithics Corp.[117] , [118] (Sold to VisiSub Inc. in 1994.)[119] | Golden, CO | Multilayer interconnect boards for military hardware |
| Resistant Materials Systems, Inc./Coors Wear Products, Inc.[120] | Lawrence, PA | Tile linings |
| Royal Worcester Industrial Ceramics, Ltd.[121] | Tonyrefail, Wales | |
| Tetrafluor Inc.[122] | El Segundo, CA | Seals and bearings |
Robert L. Johnson founded Alumina Ceramics, Inc. (ACI) in Benton, AR, in 1971 on Dale Ave. Johnson had been a ceramic engineer and project director at the Alumina Research Division of Reynolds Metals Co. in nearby Bauxite, AR. One of ACI's first products was Saphrox 99.7% Al2O3 grinding media.[80] Johnson left ACI in 1974 to work for Motorola in Phoenix, AZ,[123] and was succeeded by Ken Holiman. Coors bought ACI in 1976, mostly for the seal ring specialty ACI had developed, and eventually moved most of its alumina and SiC seal operations to Arkansas. Coors built a second factory on Boone Road. In 2019, CoorsTek invested $26M and added 50,000 ft2 to the 180,000 ft2, 200-employee Arkansas operation, in anticipation of growth in its aerospace and defense markets.[124]
Ceramatec was founded in Salt Lake City in 1976 by University of Utah Professors Ronald S. Gordon, Al Sossin and Anil V. Virkar, to develop liquid-core, sodium-sulfur batteries for automotive applications.[125] Gordon was the first president. The battery uses a beta-alumina solid electrolyte (BASE) ceramic membrane to separate the sulfur anode and sodium cathode. Donald L. Heath, a former Coors Porcelain employee, became president in 1985 and moved the company to a larger building.[126] David W. Richerson, author of Modern Ceramic Engineering (2nd Ed., Marcel Dekker Inc., 1992), was hired in 1985 and became the VP for applied technology until he left in 1992.[127] Ceramatec was bought by Elkem Metals Co., from a 10% stake in 1982 to full ownership in 1989.[128] Petter Oygarden of Elkem became the president in 1989 and guided the company to profitability by 1992, when Ceramatec had 120 employees and $12M in revenue.[129]
Ashok V. Joshi, an expert in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and the VP, bought the company from Elkem in 1999 and became president in 2000. Joshi won the Utah Governor's Medal for Science and Technology in 2003, and the IRI Achievement Award in 2010. CoorsTek acquired the 165-employee operation in 2008 to be one of its R&D centers, with Joshi continuing as interim president and D.M. "Doug" Coors (son of Joe Jr.) as manager of R&D and later president. CoorsTek launched a joint venture with Innovate! Technology in Ladera Ranch, CA, in 2009, EmiSense Technologies LLC, to commercialize emissions sensors developed by Ceramatec.[130] A new subsidiary, CoorsTek Membrane Sciences AS, was launched in Oslo, Norway, in 2015 to commercialize BASE, SOFC and other ion-separating technologies developed by Ceramatec, under the direction of Per Christian Vestre.[131] , [132]
Coors Biomedical Co., a 35-employee Porcelain subsidiary founded in 1980 in nearby Lakewood, CO, under the direction of Jim Stephan, developed a low-shrinkage, high-alumina porcelain[133] for dental restorations in the early 1980s, that could be fitted and fabricated in the dentist's office.[134] The product, sold under the name Cerestore, raised some concerns among dentists for its wear on opposing teeth and its accuracy of fit.[135] , [136] Coors Biomedical was also developing synthetic bone-grafting technologies. The technology became the property of Johnson & Johnson after Coors Biomedical closed in the late 1980s.
Coors Porcelain opened its first foreign subsidiary, Coors Ceramics U.K. Ltd. (CCUK), in the Southfield Industrial Estate in Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland, in 1981. A key function of the site was to act as the sales and marketing facility for the European market. CCUK grew when Porcelain acquired Royal Worcester Industrial Ceramics Ltd. in Wales in 1984.[137] Former CoorsTek President Derek C. Johnson began his Coors career as an electrical engineer at CCUK in 1984. CCUK was reorganized in 1988 as Coors Ceramics Electronics Ltd. (CCEL), with product lines mostly similar to those of the Coors plant in Grand Junction, namely roll-compacted, laser-drilled, thick-film 96% alumina substrates for hybrid circuits.[138] CCEL added 99.6% alumina thin-film substrates in 1991. CCEL, with 51 employees managed by Ken Henderson, received the prestigious Queen's Award for Export Achievement in 1992, for its record exports of lasered ceramic substrates.[139] CCEL acquired neighboring property in late 1992 and tripled its manufacturing operations to 30000square feet.
VZS/Seagoe Advanced Ceramics Ltd. made ceramics products in Glenrothes, including stand-off insulators, switch gears, circuit breakers, ball valves, pump shafts and bearings, trays and boiler ferrules. Its products were used in semiconductor, defense, chemical, laser, electrical, textile, and paper applications. Seagoe began as George Wade & Sons Ltd. in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. In December 1994, W. Laurie Hoskisson led the management buyout of VZS Technical Ceramics Ltd. from the Cookson Group and was appointed managing director. Hoskisson helped negotiate the merger of VZS Technical Ceramics of Glenrothes with Seagoe Advanced Ceramics of Craigavon, Northern Ireland, in January 1998. The Irish factory closed in 2002.[140] CCEL acquired its 4000-m2 neighbor and competitor, managed by Hoskisson, from Beauford plc in 2006. Hoskisson worked for CCUK beginning in 1981 as Production Manager, before he was hired by VZS. In 2017, the 70-employee operation, managed by Mark Cameron, signed a contract to manufacture ceramic components for Teledyne e2v's radiotherapy machines.[141] The Glenrothes operations closed permanently on 29 May 2021, due in part to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.[142]
Coors built a $1–2M, 2800–3700 m2 factory in Oak Ridge, TN, in early 1990, known as Coors Technical Ceramics Company (CTCC). The 40-employee Oak Ridge plant was considered an extension of Coors' Oklahoma subsidiary, R.I. Ceramic Co., with William A. "Woodie" Howe (1942-2006) managing both operations and reporting to John Jenkins, VP and GM of Coors Ceramics Structural Division. Some unspecified Y-12 product lines from Cercom in Vista, CA, were moved to Oak Ridge, along with key employees from Norman. The Tennessee location was chosen to take advantage of the technology transfer programs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Temperature Materials Lab.[86] Howe, a Coors employee from 1962 to 1999, was promoted to VP of the Structural Products Group in 1996, which included CTCC operations in Tennessee, Oklahoma, California and Texas, and ACI in Arkansas.[143] Later in 1996, CTCC acquired HB Company Inc., a manufacturer of petrochemical pump components, giving CTCC additional facilities in Oklahoma City, Odessa, TX, and Red Deer, AB, Canada.[144]
A growing demand for ceramic implantable medical devices led J.B. "Brad" Coors (son of Joe Jr.) to open C5 Medical Werks Inc. in western Colorado in 2005 next to CoorsTek's Grand Junction factory that opened in 1975. CoorsTek acquired Fort Worth-based Innovative Medical Device Solutions in 2013, and merged the two to create 400-employee CoorsTek Medical LLC, under the direction of Jonathan Coors, son of John.[145] CoorsTek Medical had operations in Chandler, AZ, Vandalia, OH, Molalla, OR, Logan, UT and Providence, UT, in addition to Texas and Colorado. Products included artificial joints, components for medical machines and implantable screws, rods and plates. The 88,000-ft2 former IMDS Vandalia site in suburban Dayton was the largest CoorsTek Medical location with 200 employees.[146]
The 12-employee, 9000-ft2 Chandler site in suburban Phoenix, begun by IMDS in 2006, was primarily a prototype design and construction operation. The former C5MW site produced components for hip and knee joints, disc replacements in spine surgery, seeds for brachytherapy, cochlear implants, neuro-stimulators, neuro-sensors and crowns, bridges, abutments and implants for dental applications.[147] The Colorado plant added ceramic injection molding capabilities in 2008.[148] CoorsTek Medical was sold to UnitedCoatings Group of Italy in July 2019, and renamed Lincotek Medical S.p.A.[149]
Francis "Frank" Maginnis (1925-2018) left the University of Oklahoma Physics Dept. machine shop to start Research Instrument Company in Norman, OK, in 1958 to produce components for oil-field pumps.[150] , [151] In 1966, Maginnis developed a way of making alumina pump plungers for the oil and gas industries, replacing steel and other metals that corroded too easily. Sales grew over the next eight years at a rate of 70-80% per year. The company was acquired by Coors Porcelain in 1975, primarily for the product line of ceramic plungers used in reciprocating pumps in secondary oil recovery processes, and ceramic ball valves.
Coors renamed the company R.I. Ceramic Company in 1978. The acquisition gave Coors product lines that would have cost ~ten times as much to develop, and an inventory of products to address buyers' immediate needs. Before the acquisition, the delivery time in Golden for ceramic pump components was months, whereas with R.I. it was closer to a week. Woodie Howe was promoted from the metallizing department supervisor in Golden to president of R.I. in 1980. R.I. had about 40 employees in the mid-1980s. Former CoorsTek chief operating officer J. Mark Chenoweth began his Coors career as a machinist at R.I. in 1986.[152] The 1996 acquisition of HB Company's newer operation in Oklahoma City led to closure of the plant in Norman and its relocation to the state capital.
William H. Wilbanks (1927-2006), Tom Stuart and Frank C. Erzen founded Wilbanks Inc. in 1963 in Hillsboro, OR, to manufacture ceramic components for the pulp and paper industries. The components included suction box covers, foil sections, Versafoil forming tables and cleaning cones. The plant was originally located at 26900 S. W. Tualatin Valley Hwy. in Hillsboro, before moving to its present site in the Hawthorn Farm Industrial Park on 53rd Ave. Coors Porcelain acquired 40-employee Wilbanks in 1973, and modified its new subsidiary's name to Wilbanks International, Inc. Bill Wilbanks remained as president until 1980, while Coors employees G.G. Grimes and Shepard Sweeney were named VP & GM and secretary-treasurer, respectively. Coors president R.D. Whiting became the chairman of the executive committee.[32]
Joe Coors Jr. was a quality engineer at Wilbanks 1973-84 and served as president 1980–84. Dean Rulis was the president of Wilbanks 1984–92. Bill Wilbanks, a ceramic engineer at Tektronix in Portland[153] before he started his namesake firm, managed the 170-employee Coban plant in Brazil in the mid-1980s until his retirement from Coors. Erzen, also a former Tektronix engineer, served as engineering manager of Coban beginning in 1981.[154] CoorsTek sold its paper machine drainage elements operations in Hillsboro to the Coldwater Group in 2017. Coldwater moved the equipment to its Atlanta facility, but still gets its ceramic components from CoorsTek.[155]