Material fold under head of cold headed hex bolt caused by severe cold heading process
1997: The name ATRONA was established
1998: Research was underway to establish the business
1999: The name was registered and the Business was officially opened. The location was on State street in Rockford, Illinois in a suite of about 2,200 square feet. The year ended successfully with about 25 clients served.
2000: Our first staff member was hired. The lab now consisted of 3 members. Our principal metallurgist published “Metallurgy & Heat Treatment, the Pocket Book”.
2001: Our 2 year lease ended in August. We purchased a new building (our current location) on Willow Creek Road. Started moving in September. The tragedy of 9/11 hit us all in the middle of our move. The focus was shifted and we all seemed to have stood still for hours and days. Then, we all recovered and went back strong. We added another staff member.
2002: ATRONA occupied 60% of the 11,000 square foot building which was designed to house two separate businesses. ATRONA expanded its metallurgical testing facilities to include chemical analysis and equipment to examine large components and assemblies. The staff grew to 5 members with over 150 clients served.
2003: ATRONA’s reputation was established well among many clients by word of mouth as responsive, knowledgeable, and competitive. ATRONA gained many new clients and opened a mechanical testing division under the name ATRONA Engineering Solutions. The mechanical testing division was housed in the other 40% of the building and focused on automotive testing by FMVSS procedures and offered tensile testing, torque testing, life cycle testing, etc. The staff grew to 7 members. ATRONA was successfully accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 for metallurgical, chemical and mechanical testing.
2004: The two divisions (metallurgical and mechanical) were officially merged under the name of ATRONA Material Testing Labs, our current name. At this time we have served over 250 clients and have grown to 11,000 square foot facility that is state of the art and designed specifically for a laboratory. This year marked our increasingly rapid growth and ATRONA’s staff grew to 12 members. We added a scanning electron microscope and an additional chemical analysis unit and upgraded the metallurgical and mechanical labs.
2005: The automotive industry took a big hit and testing programs were severely cut. We shifted our focus to our core passion of failure analysis and metallurgical testing. We were able to gain many new clients and finished the year with over 400 clients.
2006 to 2008: ATRONA continues to grow and offer new services and improve and expand the existing services. Our staff now totals 11 members with over 550 clients served. We added a new state of the art Scanning Electron Microscope, Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy system, additional spectrometer for chemical analysis of all metals, additional metallographs, microscopes, automatic microhardness tester with mapping, Carbon and Sulfur LECO machine, Additional tensile tester for polymers, and much more. We also expanded the microscopy lab and established a new chemistry lab. We thank all our clients. They are the reason we have a success story to tell.
2009: ATRONA continues to do well and grow despite the recession and bad economy. ATRONA acquires the Rockford Research Lab of Bodycote Testing Group and expands its capabilities to include polymer testing, x-ray analysis, and hires two additional engineers, both with PhD's in Metallurgy and Chemistry.
