Firstar Precision Corp., an Empowered Ventures portfolio company, recently used a visit by a congressman to showcase several of its passions: employee ownership culture, supporting STEM education, and innovative manufacturing technology. Rep. Max Miller, who represents Ohio’s Seventh Congressional district where the company is located, met with employee owners to also talk about issues like automation, robotics, supply chain, and employee retention.
Firstar, located in Brunswick, Ohio, produces precision-machined components with state-of-the-art Computer Numerical Control (CNC) technology. The company has forged beneficial partnerships with the city’s local career center and strives to be the industry leader in precision machining. Those deepened bonds within the community have paved the way for one of the company’s emerging talents, Makayla Simmers, to be hired after connecting with Firstar through a job training program while still in school.
Firstar’s focus on excellence and taking on challenging jobs recently earned the 23-year-old company work with NASA on a project involving a memory shape alloy. Firstar is located less than 20 miles from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Rep. Miller toured the company’s northern Ohio facility, which included the very technology that was used to precision craft the memory shape alloy.
“The work with NASA is interesting and I think it helps kind of position ourselves in the industry by saying that we can handle these exotic materials and opens up our customers to ask what else can we do?” says Firstar Vice President of Finance Luke Orszag. “Being able to point to those kinds of partnerships while also welcoming a congressman to our facility helps validate the business even more. If nothing else, it kind of keeps us in people’s mind.”
Made In America. Great words that we need to see on more products! Thanks to @firststarCNC for the meeting and discussion on creating a thriving workforce here in #OH07. pic.twitter.com/L1a7tGR5Li
— Congressman Max Miller (@RepMaxMiller) April 5, 2023
Rep. Miller is one of the newest members of Congress and his agenda has included supporting manufacturing as an economic engine and STEM education. He sits on the House Committee on Science, Space & Technology.
Firstar was founded in 2000 by company President David Tenny. It was acquired in 2021 by Empowered Ventures and is 100% employee owned through an ESOP.
