Business View Magazine | October 2019

76 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2019 today,” notes Rob Smith, Richard’s son, who came to work for the business after graduating from Lake Superior State. “We’ve grown Wolverine Bronze into a 100,000-square-foot facility and made several changes,” says Richard. “We’ve expanded from strictly automotive tooling to aerospace tooling, powertrain, and high-performance parts. We now have a fully automated development foundry which is used to develop processes for new production casting designs. We can develop that process for the production foundry so that they don’t have to tie up their production facility with development work. We’ve also moved into the low pressure, precision sand casting world—high- performance engine blocks, heads, transmission housings, intake manifolds, and the like.” Rob adds: “Our unique capabilities allow us to cover all aspects of non-ferrous castings, from the simplest shapes to the most complicated cylinder heads that are coming out in future automotive programs.” Historically, Wolverine Bronze Co. has been a manufacturer of standard fixture components and cast aluminum bases for Michigan-based automotive manufacturers. But over the years, the business has evolved in multifaceted and multidirectional ways, manufacturing and distributing an internationally respected product line of cast aluminum bases and components in both metric and English dimensions, as well as special application bases and castings for aerospace, defense, packaging, and industrial automation products. “One of the newest things we’re venturing into is a semi-permanent mold,” says Richard. “We’ve also got our sights set on some low-pressure permanent mold processes that are really in their infancy. As always, we’re heavily invested in growing the low-pressure sand cast foundry as well as the development foundry, which works on casting process development and low-volume semi-permanent mold production.”