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Olson Aluminum Castings

Olson Aluminum Castings is an aluminum sand casting foundry based out of Rockford, Illinois.

Founded in 1945, Olson Aluminum designs and creates castings of all shapes, sizes, and complexities. Olson Aluminum Castings started as a pattern shop and still creates patterns in house today. Today, Olson Aluminum utilizes both methods of green sand and air set sand. They are well know for producing castings that are pressure tight & leak free with zero porosity. Many customers have stated that the castings they have from Olson Aluminum Castings is as close as possible to billet like properties.

History

For 78 years Olson Aluminum Castings has been creating industry leading sand castings that have always been pressure tight & leak free. Over the past 78 years of business, Olson Aluminum Castings has been owned and operated by three generations and has operated in several different facilities quickly outgrown and expanded from one to the next all while staying in Rockford, Illinois.

In 1945, Roy Olson pursued the venture of creating casting patterns in the basement of his home on Rockford Avenue. His newly founded business was growing rapidly and he quickly moved to a new facility. In just a few short years, Roy was able to grow the business and move into two more facilities before his sons Ray and Don joined the business in 1965. Around the time Ray & Don joined, Olson Aluminum had expanded into multiple buildings on Magnolia Street and had roughly 12 employees. During that time, Roy and his sons started creating castings for Greenlee Tools, who has become our longest lasting customer to this day. Right as it was all going in a good direction in 1968 Roy passed away. Ray and Don Olson didn’t stop after his passing. They carried the torch and in 1970 they bought the land the current foundry sits on. In 1981 the initial foundry building was finished. It was full steam ahead from then on. Then in 1995 Ray’s oldest son, Tad, joined the team at Olson Aluminum Castings after finishing graduate school at Tulane University. In 2006, Tad became the president and owner of Olson Aluminum. Under the next generation of family ownership, in 2010 a large expansion was built for the foundry to handle all of the space needed for the air set lines. The building next door was also purchased to operate Olson Aluminum’s subsidiary company Sky Bracket. Tad wasn’t finished there, in 2019, Olson Aluminum Casting’s foundry had another expansion built. With all of the continued growth throughout 78 years of business, Olson Aluminum has 75 employees and the next generation of Olsons helping out where they can.

Olson Aluminum Castings hasn’t lasted 78 years by luck. It was through hard work, dedication, mutual support to and from the community from the Olson family and their coworkers that has formed Olson Aluminum into what it is today.