On April 24, 1916, the company that would become Engineered Materials Solutions was founded. Originally named General Plate Company, it began by creating specialty clad metals to meet the needs of the local jewelry industry. The company’s products included materials that had a surface of precious metal, for the desired appearance and cosmetic characteristics, but combined with additional metals which would enhance mechanical properties and reduced precious metal content and cost. This was the start of clad metals at Engineered Materials Solutions.
The company continued to grow and in 1931 it merged with Spencer Thermostat Company, becoming Metals & Controls Corporation. This new company offered customers the knowledge of metallurgically bonding dissimilar metals, while refining the technology to apply these materials to accomplish various tasks; such as, safety, thermal regulation and controls solutions for the burgeoning electrical, appliance and many other markets.
Most notably, Metals & Controls invented Pressure Temperature Bonding (PT Bonding) in 1952. Today, more Clad Metal is produced by this method than any other method. Because of its expertise in working with a wide range of materials, particularly materials of high cost, Metals & Controls was chosen by the United States Government to be the first commercial fabricator of uranium fuel rods.
Metals & Controls merged with Texas Instruments in 1959 and the company’s reputation for metallurgical excellence, processing, and applications innovation continued to grow. During this period, the company developed a complete line of Thermostatic Bimetal products, available in strip, parts, and assemblies. Notable milestones include the invention of clad coinage for the U.S. Mint in 1964, the first application of stainless clad aluminum automobile trim in 1971, the first use of copper clad aluminum wire in CATV transmission lines in 1977, the first application of copper/invar/copper to control thermal expansion in electronics substrates and circuit boards in 1985, and the development of isobaric cold rolling – a solution to the problem of cold rolling brittle materials, in 1992.
In 2000 we became Engineered Materials Solutions, with our new name reflecting exactly what we have been providing since 1916; highly engineered materials that provide customized solutions to satisfy our customer and market needs.
Today, Engineered Materials Solutions provides Clad Metals using PT Bonding, warm bonding, inlay cladding and side-to-side cladding for thousands of applications around the world. We at EMS, along with our sister companies in the Wickeder Group, strive to deliver our customers the "Best of Metal”.
