CoorsTek
Encyclopedia
CoorsTek, Inc. is a privately owned manufacturer of technical ceramic
s, semiconductor
tooling, plastic tubing, medical devices and other industrial products. CoorsTek’s headquarters and primary factories are located in Golden, Colorado
, USA, near the foothills west of Denver
. The company is owned by a trust of the Coors family. The president and chairman is John K. Coors, a great-grandson of founder and brewing magnate Adolph Coors
I.
, west of Denver. In 1888, the glass works, incorporated as Coors, Binder & Co., was idled by a strike and never re-opened. The Glass Works was leased to German-born John Herold in 1910, who incorporated the Herold China and Pottery Company on the site at 600 Ninth St in Golden. Herold used clay
from nearby mines to make dinnerware and heat-resistant porcelain
ovenware under the trademark Herold Fireproof China. The now-abandoned clay pits form the western boundary of the Colorado School of Mines
(CSM) campus. Adolph Coors became the majority stockholder and was elected to the board of directors of Herold China in 1912. John Herold resigned, and Adolph Coors Company acquired Herold China in 1914. Herold returned in 1914 to manage the plant, but left permanently in 1915. 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’ second son, Herman F. Coors
, was named manager in 1916. Herold China was renamed Coors Porcelain Company in 1920, and the trademark “Coors U.S.A.” was first used.
, the ceramic business was largely what kept the parent company afloat. The original factory site at 600 Ninth St 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 440000 sq ft (40,877.3 m²) Ninth St plant consists of several adjoining buildings that occupy four square blocks, and is still CoorsTek’s largest manufacturing site.
Herman Coors managed the company in the early days. Herman’s younger brother, Grover C. Coors, began the fledgling company’s foray into ceramic technology by inventing a tool for forming spark plug insulation in 1919. Herman left in 1925 to start the H.F. Coors China Company, a manufacturer of dishes for restaurants and institutional use, in Inglewood, CA. The H.F. Coors Pottery's trademarks include Coorsite, Alox and Chefsware.
s with aluminum ones, as part of a closed-loop recycling
system. The effort was the brainchild of W.K. “Bill” Coors
, the second son of Adolph II. 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. The first aluminum beer can was produced at the site in January, 1959. B.L. “Bob” Mornin, a ceramic engineer
at Coors Porcelain since 1954, was appointed manager of can production in 1963, and led it to profitability. The can operation eventually outgrew the Porcelain building and moved into its present location east of the brewery in 1966. Coors Brewing Company
reorganized its can operations into a joint venture with the Ball Corp.
in 2002, known as Rocky Mountain Metal Container LLC. CoorsTek began developing ceramic tooling for beverage can machinery in the 1990s.
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. 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.
before and especially after World War II. Coors greatly expanded its product lines, reduced scrap and accelerated production with the aid of cold isostatic pressing in the 1940s, tape casting and hot isostatic pressing
in the 1950s, and multilayer ceramic capacitor
s in the 1960s. High-alumina (85 to 99.9% Al2O3) ceramics replaced porcelain
in many thermomechanical, electrical and chemical applications. Coors engineers Vlad Wolkodoff and Bob Weaver invented fully dense, glass-free 99.5+% Al2O3 ceramics in 1964, useful for many applications where porcelain is deficient. Growth in the 1970s enabled Coors to build an electronic ceramics plant east of Golden in 1970, and its first facility outside of Golden, an electronic substrate plant in Grand Junction, CO
, in 1975. Coors made its first purchase of a competitor when it bought Wilbanks International Inc. (originally Far West Industrial Ceramics) of Hillsboro, OR
, in 1973. Another competitor, Alumina Ceramics Inc. of Benton, AR
, was acquired in 1976. Coors began making silicon carbide
, silicon nitride
, spinel
, zirconia and several other ceramic products by the mid-1980s.
(1917–2003), third son of Adolph II, joined Porcelain in 1940. He was promoted to president in 1957, and became a member of the board of directors and an executive of Adolph Coors Company as well. Joe was named an Honorary Member of the American Ceramic Society
in 1985.
, 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.
to become the first Coors Professor and succeeded Wirth as director of CCAC. Readey, a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society
(ACerS), served as president of ACerS in 1991-2, and was named a Distinguished Life Member of ACerS in 2002. Upon his retirement, Readey was succeeded as Coors Professor by Nigel Sammes, and as director of CCAC by Ivar Reimanis. W. Grover Coors, a brother of CoorsTek president John Coors, earned his Ph.D.
at CSM and has been a research professor in CCAC. John Coors earned his B.Sc. in chemical engineering
at CSM in 1977.
as its largest subsidiary. The non-brewing subsidiaries were spun off at the end of 1992 under a new holding company, ACX Technologies, Inc., with Bill Coors as chairman of both holding companies. The key subsidiaries of ACX were Coors Ceramics Co.; Graphic Packaging Corporation, 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 a former Wilbanks executive; and Golden Aluminum Company, with Joe Jr. as its interim president. 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 1997, and is now an independent remelter and rolling mill in Fort Lupton, CO. Graphic Pkg merged with Riverwood International Corp. in 2003 and moved its headquarters to Marietta, GA, but still has a plant in Golden and supplies paperboard packaging for Coors beer. 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 600 Ninth St in Golden proper to a new building at 16000 Table Mountain Pkwy in an unincorporated area northeast of Golden.
, MS, and Rio Claro, São Paulo
, Brazil.
under the symbol CRTK. Joe Jr. retired as chairman and president of CoorsTek in 2000, and was succeeded by his younger brother John. Keystone Holdings LLC, a trust
of the Coors family, bought the stock it did not already own, and took the company private once again in 2003.
., The Saint-Gobain 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, Hexoloy SiC products, 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.
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
s, semiconductor
Semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...
tooling, plastic tubing, medical devices and other industrial products. CoorsTek’s headquarters and primary factories are located in Golden, Colorado
Golden, Colorado
The City of Golden is a home rule municipality that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the edge of the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Founded during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush on 16 June 1859, the mining camp was...
, USA, near the foothills west of Denver
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
. The company is owned by a trust of the Coors family. The president and chairman is John K. Coors, a great-grandson of founder and brewing magnate Adolph Coors
Adolph Coors
Adolph Herman Joseph Coors, Sr. was a brewman who started the Adolph Coors Company in Golden, Colorado in 1873.-Early years:...
I.
Adolph Coors and John Herold
Rhineland-born Adolph Coors (1847–1929) opened the Colorado Glass Works in 1887 to manufacture beer bottles for his brewery, the Adolph Coors Brewing CompanyAdolph Coors Company
The Golden, Colorado Adolph Coors Company was formerly a holding company controlled by the heirs of founder Adolph Coors. Its principal subsidiary is the Coors Brewing Company. It was founded in 1873....
, west of Denver. In 1888, the glass works, incorporated as Coors, Binder & Co., was idled by a strike and never re-opened. The Glass Works was leased to German-born John Herold in 1910, who incorporated the Herold China and Pottery Company on the site at 600 Ninth St in Golden. Herold used clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
from nearby mines to make dinnerware and heat-resistant porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
ovenware under the trademark Herold Fireproof China. The now-abandoned clay pits form the western boundary of the Colorado School of Mines
Colorado School of Mines
The Colorado School of Mines is a small public teaching and research university devoted to engineering and applied science, with special expertise in the development and stewardship of the Earth's natural resources. Located in Golden, Colorado, CSM was ranked 29th, in America among national...
(CSM) campus. Adolph Coors became the majority stockholder and was elected to the board of directors of Herold China in 1912. John Herold resigned, and Adolph Coors Company acquired Herold China in 1914. Herold returned in 1914 to manage the plant, but left permanently in 1915. 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’ second son, Herman F. Coors
Herman Coors House
Herman Coors House, also known as Roy and Rosalie Cole House was the home of Herman Frederick Coors. It was originally built as a modest bungalow in 1915 by Elmer Johnson, a builder who later in 1934 built the brewhouse of the Coors Brewery...
, was named manager in 1916. Herold China was renamed Coors Porcelain Company in 1920, and the trademark “Coors U.S.A.” was first used.
Rosebud china and Prohibition after WW1
After World War I, Coors Porcelain made fine china and cookware bearing the trademarks Rosebud, Glencoe Thermo-Porcelain, Coorado, Mello-Tone and others. During ProhibitionProhibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
, the ceramic business was largely what kept the parent company afloat. The original factory site at 600 Ninth St 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 440000 sq ft (40,877.3 m²) Ninth St plant consists of several adjoining buildings that occupy four square blocks, and is still CoorsTek’s largest manufacturing site.
Herman Coors managed the company in the early days. Herman’s younger brother, Grover C. Coors, began the fledgling company’s foray into ceramic technology by inventing a tool for forming spark plug insulation in 1919. Herman left in 1925 to start the H.F. Coors China Company, a manufacturer of dishes for restaurants and institutional use, in Inglewood, CA. The H.F. Coors Pottery's trademarks include Coorsite, Alox and Chefsware.
Aluminum beer cans
In the 1950s, Coors Porcelain’s parent company investigated the possibility of replacing steel beverage canBeverage can
A beverage can is a tin can designed to hold a specific portion of a beverage. Beverage cans are made of tin-plated steel or aluminium.- History :...
s with aluminum ones, as part of a closed-loop recycling
Recycling
Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
system. The effort was the brainchild of W.K. “Bill” Coors
William Coors
William Coors is the grandson of Adolph Coors, the founder of the Coors Brewing Company. William Coors has been affiliated with the company for 64 years, and was a board member from 1973 to 2003.-Biography:Mr. Coors was born in Colorado on August 11, 1916...
, the second son of Adolph II. A Porcelain warehouse at the corner of Ninth St and Washington Ave in Golden was selected to house the pilot plant
Pilot plant
A pilot plant is a small chemical processing system which is operated to generate information about the behavior of the system for use in design of larger facilities....
for the aluminum can line. The first aluminum beer can was produced at the site in January, 1959. B.L. “Bob” Mornin, a ceramic engineer
Ceramic engineering
Ceramic engineering is the science and technology of creating objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials. This is done either by the action of heat, or at lower temperatures using precipitation reactions from high purity chemical solutions...
at Coors Porcelain since 1954, was appointed manager of can production in 1963, and led it to profitability. The can operation eventually outgrew the Porcelain building and moved into its present location east of the brewery in 1966. Coors Brewing Company
Coors Brewing Company
The Coors Brewing Company is a regional division of the world's fifth-largest brewing company, the Canadian Molson Coors Brewing Company and is the third-largest brewer in the United States...
reorganized its can operations into a joint venture with the Ball Corp.
Ball Corp.
Ball Corporation , originally Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, is an American company famous for producing glass canning jars. Founded in 1880, it is currently headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. The company has expanded into other areas such as avionics, space systems, metal beverage...
in 2002, known as Rocky Mountain Metal Container LLC. CoorsTek began developing ceramic tooling for beverage can machinery in the 1990s.
On January 22, 2009, the original Coors can plant was named an ASM Historical Landmark by the Board of Trustees of ASM International
ASM International
ASM International, formerly known as the American Society for Metals, is a professional organization for materials scientists and engineers working with metals....
, for its role in ushering in the age of recyclable aluminum beverage containers. 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.
Ceramic technology and company growth after WW2
The company gradually diversified its lines of technical ceramicsCeramic forming techniques
Ceramic forming techniques are ways of forming ceramic shapes. This can be used to make everyday tableware from teapots, to engineering ceramics such as computer parts. Methods for forming powders of ceramic raw materials into complex shapes are desirable in many areas of technology...
before and especially after World War II. Coors greatly expanded its product lines, reduced scrap and accelerated production with the aid of cold isostatic pressing in the 1940s, tape casting and hot isostatic pressing
Hot isostatic pressing
Hot isostatic pressing is a manufacturing process used to reduce the porosity of metals and influence the density of many ceramic materials. This improves the material's mechanical properties and workability....
in the 1950s, and multilayer ceramic capacitor
Capacitor
A capacitor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in an electric field. The forms of practical capacitors vary widely, but all contain at least two electrical conductors separated by a dielectric ; for example, one common construction consists of metal foils separated...
s in the 1960s. High-alumina (85 to 99.9% Al2O3) ceramics replaced porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
in many thermomechanical, electrical and chemical applications. Coors engineers Vlad Wolkodoff and Bob Weaver invented fully dense, glass-free 99.5+% Al2O3 ceramics in 1964, useful for many applications where porcelain is deficient. Growth in the 1970s enabled Coors to build an electronic ceramics plant east of Golden in 1970, and its first facility outside of Golden, an electronic substrate plant in Grand Junction, CO
Grand Junction, Colorado
The City of Grand Junction is the largest city in western Colorado. It is a city with a council–manager government form that is the county seat and the most populous city of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. Grand Junction is situated west-southwest of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. As...
, in 1975. Coors made its first purchase of a competitor when it bought Wilbanks International Inc. (originally Far West Industrial Ceramics) of Hillsboro, OR
Hillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County. Lying in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city is home to many high-technology companies, such as Intel, that compose what has become known as the...
, in 1973. Another competitor, Alumina Ceramics Inc. of Benton, AR
Benton, Arkansas
Benton is a city in and the county seat of Saline County, Arkansas, United States and a suburb of Little Rock. It was established in 1837. According to a 2006 Special Census conducted at the request of the city government, the population of the city is 27,717, ranking it as the state's 16th largest...
, was acquired in 1976. Coors began making silicon carbide
Silicon carbide
Silicon carbide , also known as carborundum, is a compound of silicon and carbon with chemical formula SiC. It occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite. Silicon carbide powder has been mass-produced since 1893 for use as an abrasive...
, silicon nitride
Silicon nitride
Silicon nitride is a chemical compound of silicon and nitrogen. If powdered silicon is heated between 1300° and 1400°C in an atmosphere of nitrogen, trisilicon tetranitride, Si3N4, is formed. The silicon sample weight increases progressively due to the chemical combination of silicon and nitrogen...
, spinel
Spinel
Spinel is the magnesium aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula MgAl2O4. Balas ruby is an old name for a rose-tinted variety.-Spinel group:...
, zirconia and several other ceramic products by the mid-1980s.
The Joe Coors era
Joseph “Joe” Coors, Sr.Joseph Coors
Joseph Coors, Sr. , was the grandson of Adolph Coors and president of Coors Brewing Company. -Birth and education:...
(1917–2003), third son of Adolph II, joined Porcelain in 1940. He was promoted to president in 1957, and became a member of the board of directors and an executive of Adolph Coors Company as well. Joe was named an Honorary Member of the American Ceramic Society
American Ceramic Society
The American Ceramic Society is a non-profit professional organization for the ceramics community, with a focus on scientific research, emerging technologies, and applications in which ceramic materials are an element...
in 1985.
Coors Porcelain becomes Coors Ceramics
Coors Porcelain was renamed Coors Ceramics Company in 1986, shortly after Joseph Coors, Jr. (1942- ), succeeded R. Derald Whiting as president. At that point, porcelain was only a small part of the 12-plant, 2200-employee company's output. High-alumina ceramics were and still are the company's bread and butter. Joe Jr., a mathematician and quality engineerCQE
Certified Quality Engineer, often abbreviated CQE, is a certification given by the American Society for Quality. These engineers are professionally educated in quality engineering and quality control....
, 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.
Chaired professor and ceramic research at CSM
Janet Coors, 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. Coors executive David G. Wirth, Jr., was appointed as the first director of CCAC. Dennis W. Readey left the Ohio State UniversityOhio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
to become the first Coors Professor and succeeded Wirth as director of CCAC. Readey, a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society
American Ceramic Society
The American Ceramic Society is a non-profit professional organization for the ceramics community, with a focus on scientific research, emerging technologies, and applications in which ceramic materials are an element...
(ACerS), served as president of ACerS in 1991-2, and was named a Distinguished Life Member of ACerS in 2002. Upon his retirement, Readey was succeeded as Coors Professor by Nigel Sammes, and as director of CCAC by Ivar Reimanis. W. Grover Coors, a brother of CoorsTek president John Coors, earned his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
at CSM and has been a research professor in CCAC. John Coors earned his B.Sc. in chemical engineering
Chemical engineering
Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with physical science , and life sciences with mathematics and economics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms...
at CSM in 1977.
The Coors empire separates
Adolph Coors Company became a holding company in 1989, with Coors Brewing CompanyCoors Brewing Company
The Coors Brewing Company is a regional division of the world's fifth-largest brewing company, the Canadian Molson Coors Brewing Company and is the third-largest brewer in the United States...
as its largest subsidiary. The non-brewing subsidiaries were spun off at the end of 1992 under a new holding company, ACX Technologies, Inc., with Bill Coors as chairman of both holding companies. The key subsidiaries of ACX were Coors Ceramics Co.; Graphic Packaging Corporation, 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 a former Wilbanks executive; and Golden Aluminum Company, with Joe Jr. as its interim president. 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
Alcoa
Alcoa Inc. is the world's third largest producer of aluminum, behind Rio Tinto Alcan and Rusal. From its operational headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Alcoa conducts operations in 31 countries...
in 1997, and is now an independent remelter and rolling mill in Fort Lupton, CO. Graphic Pkg merged with Riverwood International Corp. in 2003 and moved its headquarters to Marietta, GA, but still has a plant in Golden and supplies paperboard packaging for Coors beer. 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 600 Ninth St in Golden proper to a new building at 16000 Table Mountain Pkwy in an unincorporated area northeast of Golden.
Acquisitions and diversification
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. In 1993, Coors sold its ceramic subsidiaries in Ocean SpringsOcean Springs, Mississippi
Ocean Springs is a city in Jackson County, Mississippi, United States, about east of Biloxi. It is part of the Pascagoula, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 17,225 at the 2000 census...
, MS, and Rio Claro, São Paulo
Rio Claro, São Paulo
Rio Claro is a city in the state of São Paulo in Brazil. The population in 2005 was 195,131 and the area is 521 km². The elevation is 613 m. It was incorporated as the village of São João Batista do Ribeirão Claro in 1827, and this incorporation is celebrated every year on June 24 as a municipal...
, Brazil.
Coors Ceramics becomes CoorsTek
In 2000, ACX was dissolved and Coors Ceramics became an independent, publicly traded company under the name of CoorsTek, Inc. CoorsTek was traded on the NASDAQNASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...
under the symbol CRTK. Joe Jr. retired as chairman and president of CoorsTek in 2000, and was succeeded by his younger brother John. Keystone Holdings LLC, a trust
Investment trust
An Investment trust is a form of collective investment found mostly in the United Kingdom. Investment trusts are closed-end funds and are constituted as public limited companies....
of the Coors family, bought the stock it did not already own, and took the company private once again in 2003.
Saint-Gobain acquisition
CoorsTek signed an agreement in June 2010 to buy the Advanced Ceramics division of the French conglomerate Saint-GobainSaint-Gobain
Saint-Gobain S.A. is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris and headquartered on the outskirts of Paris at La Défense and in Courbevoie. Originally a mirror manufacturer, it now also produces a variety of construction and high-performance materials.The company has its head...
., The Saint-Gobain 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, Hexoloy SiC products, 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
Mullite
Mullite or porcelainite is a rare silicate mineral of post-clay genesis. It can form two stoichiometric forms 3Al2O32SiO2 or 2Al2O3 SiO2. Unusually, mullite has no charge balancing cations present...
and steatite.
Products and services
- 99.8% alumina tubing, crucibleCrucibleA crucible is a container used for metal, glass, and pigment production as well as a number of modern laboratory processes, which can withstand temperatures high enough to melt or otherwise alter its contents...
s and thermocoupleThermocoupleA thermocouple is a device consisting of two different conductors that produce a voltage proportional to a temperature difference between either end of the pair of conductors. Thermocouples are a widely used type of temperature sensor for measurement and control and can also be used to convert a...
sheaths - Analytical laboratories specializing in ceramic products
- Cera-Check beams for coordinate measuring machines
- Ceramic armor
- Ceramic powder preparation
- Cera-Slide paper-making tooling
- Coors USA laboratory wares
- CycloneCyclonic separationCyclonic separation is a method of removing particulates from an air, gas or liquid stream, without the use of filters, through vortex separation. Rotational effects and gravity are used to separate mixtures of solids and fluids...
liners and wear-resistant tiles for effluent separation and mineral dressing - Electronic substrates and ceramic dual in-line packageDual in-line packageIn microelectronics, a dual in-line package is an electronic device package with a rectangular housing and two parallel rows of electrical connecting pins. The package may be through-hole mounted to a printed circuit board or inserted in a socket.A DIP is usually referred to as a DIPn, where n is...
s - Exhaust port liners and other engine components
- Grinding media
- Kiln furniture, heat exchangerHeat exchangerA heat exchanger is a piece of equipment built for efficient heat transfer from one medium to another. The media may be separated by a solid wall, so that they never mix, or they may be in direct contact...
s, refractories - Metallized waveguides and stand-off insulators for electric power transmission and telecommunications
- Micro-filtration devices for medical applications
- Pump plungers and seal rings
- Valve plates for washerless faucets
- Wire-drawing capstansCapstan (nautical)A capstan is a vertical-axled rotating machine developed for use on sailing ships to apply force to ropes, cables, and hawsers. The principle is similar to that of the windlass, which has a horizontal axle.- History :...
and diesDie (manufacturing)A die is a specialized tool used in manufacturing industries to cut or shape material using a press. Like molds, dies are generally customized to the item they are used to create... - Zirconia oxygen sensorOxygen sensorAn oxygen sensor, or lambda sensor, is an electronic device that measures the proportion of oxygen in the gas or liquid being analyzed. It was developed by the Robert Bosch GmbH company during the late 1960s under the supervision of Dr. Günter Bauman...
s
Subsidiaries and Outlying Operations
| Austin, Houston and Odessa, TX | Petrochemical, oil and gas hardware |
| Benton, AR | Formerly Alumina Ceramics, Inc. |
| El Segundo, Fremont and Ventura, CA | Formerly Tetrafluor, Inc., et al. |
| Glenrothes Glenrothes Glenrothes is a large town situated in the heart of Fife, in east-central Scotland. It is located approximately from both Edinburgh, which lies to the south and Dundee to the north. The town had an estimated population of 38,750 in 2008, making Glenrothes the third largest settlement in Fife... , Fife, Scotland |
Formerly VZS-Seagoe |
| Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland | Thick- and thin-film substrates |
| Grand Junction, CO | C5 Medical Werks |
| Grand Junction, CO | Thick-film substrates |
| Gumi City, Korea | CoorsTek Korea |
| Hillsboro, OR | Formerly Wilbanks International, Inc. |
| Kyungbook, Korea | Formerly Doo Young Semitek Co., Ltd. |
| Oklahoma City, OK | Formerly RI Ceramics Co. |
| Oak Ridge, TN | Formerly Coors Technical Ceramics Co. |
| Ottawa, ON, Canada | DEW Engineering and Development Ltd. |
| Red Deer, AB, Canada | Petrochemical, oil and gas hardware |
| Salt Lake City, UT | Ceramatec, Inc. |
| Vista, CA | Formerly BAE Systems |
Former subsidiaries
| Alpha Optical Systems Inc. | Ocean Springs, MS |
| Ceram, | El Cajon, CA |
| Ceramicon Designs | Golden, CO |
| Cercom, Inc. | Vista, CA |
| Coban Industrial Ltda. | Rio Claro, SP, Brazil |
| Coors Biomedical Co. | Lakewood, CO |
| Coors Ceramics Asia-Pacific | Singapore |
| Coors Components, Inc. | Broomfield, CO |
| Coors Electronic Package Co. | Chattanooga, TN |
| Coors Optical Systems Co. | Golden, CO |
| Humphreys Investment Co. | Denver, CO |
| MicroLithics Corp. | Golden, CO |
| Resistant Materials Systems, Inc./Coors Wear Products, Inc. | Lawrence, PA |
| Royal Worcester Industrial Ceramics, Ltd. | Tonyrefail, Wales |
Presidents
- Adolph Coors I (1920-1929)
- Adolph Coors II (1929-1947)
- H.W. Ryland (1948-1957)
- Joe Coors, Sr. (1957-1972)
- R. Derald Whiting (1972-1985)
- Joe Coors, Jr. (1985–1992, 1997-2000)
- James Wade (1992-1997)
- John K. Coors (2000- 2004)
- Derek Johnson (2004 - 2005)
- John K. Coors (2005 - )