In partnership with the Greater Green Bay Chamber, NBC 26 is celebrating Manufacturing Month in October.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
Green Bay Drop Forge’s Chief Operating Officer, Hector Ibarra, helps to lead a team in an industry that’s been around for centuries.
“It was just somebody who figured out that you can heat metal, you can change it,” Ibarra said.
Forging is a high-powered process of heating metal at temperatures exceeding 2,000 degrees, and then shaping it into parts.
These parts could end up in products across almost every industry, from sports, and medical equipment to aerospace and military defense.
“You’re kind of creating art that sometimes is hard to duplicate, for example, with a robot, so you need to have a sense of what you’re manufacturing,” Ibarra said.
Green Bay Drop Forge is a business unit under Cleveland Hardware and Forging Co.
The company opened its Green Bay location in 1914 to expand the forging industry while creating new career paths for its employees. Just ask Kayla Everetts, the company’s assembly supervisor.