Company: Astro Industries
Location: Ashwaubenon
Founded in: 1982
What they do: Astro Industries specializes in chrome and nickel electroplating.
How they’re growing: Astro Industries has been in the grinding and plating industry for 31 years. It is a second generation, family-owned business that continues to grow at a moderate and steady pace. Astro Industries is nearly at maximum production capacity in its current facility, which has led the company to take on an expansion project and add on 20,000 square feet to increase its total plant size to 65,000 square feet at a cost of $2,168,375.
The expansion will provide space for nine new tanks and new machining centers to keep up with customer demand, which will cost $1,416,000. The additional equipment means they will need to hire 20 more employees over the next three years, including 18 production workers and two supervisors. The expansion will also allow Astro Industries to reduce its lead time in meeting project deadlines, to bring nickel plating operations back in-house, and to expand into new markets. Bringing the nickel plating operations to Ashwaubenon will put the company in a unique situation to bring more oil/gas work to Wisconsin that is currently being done in Texas.
What they’re saying: “In the last 15 years, Astro Industries has expanded three different times and WEDC is pleased that we are able to assist with the latest expansion project.” – Reed Hall, former secretary and CEO of WEDC during the expansion in October 2014
