In 1959, six men, sharing 60 years of electroplating experience, decided to start their own business in Ypsilanti, Michigan. It was a small operation based out of the old Tucker Automobile Plant, with a handful of good people and a tremendous workload. The plant began by producing small volumes of zinc, cadmium, copper and phosphate coatings in two manually operated barrel lines.
Marsh Plating grew nearly tenfold in its first years of existence, and in the process, became one of the area’s largest job shop platers. Despite this rather impressive growth, Marsh Plating remained relatively unknown in the Southeastern Michigan market. Capacity and product lines were added to meet customer needs, but the corporation was unable to generate the surplus capacity necessary to support additional customers.
In an attempt to address this problem, Finishing Services Inc. was founded in 1975. Finishing Services began by producing zinc and manganese phosphate coatings as well as providing cleaning and pickling services to Marsh Plating’s customer base. Equipment was subsequently added to process copper, nickel, tin, electroless nickel, dip spin and 3M mechanical coatings.
From 1983 – 1987 both Marsh Plating and Finishing Services undertook major physical plant expansions which saw them expend in excess of $3 million and add over 45,000’2 to the combined facilities. Integral with expansion was the installation of state of the art waste water treatment facilities, new dock facilities and modernized process control laboratories.
This pattern of growth and improvement has continued up to the present, with over $15 million dollars having been expended on the modernization of existing equipment, installation of new equipment and launch of a new facility, Piedmont Plating Corporation, in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Today, Marsh Plating, Finishing Services and Piedmont Plating employ over 150 associates and have annual sales in excess of $20 million. The three facilities encompass more than 200,000’2 and house 13 full automatic plating lines capable of producing nearly all high volume coatings.