DE PERE – From construction vehicle wheel hubs to Civil War reenactment cannons, Lawton Standard knows their way around iron castings.
“Essentially what we do, everywhere we do it, is we melt metal into a liquid form. We dig a hole in the sand and we pour it into the hole,” said Lawton Standard Director of Sales and Marketing Andy Mastalir.
Lawton Standard is a local foundry started in De Pere in 1879 by Charles Lawton.
Five generations later and the company is still in the family with Alex Lawton, the current CEO.
The original building was in what is now downtown De Pere and utilized the dam as an energy source.
When the company was started, they mainly produced bran dressing machines but have since moved on to expand their production.
“We were always looking for something where we could offer something more and new,” Alex Lawton, CEO, stated.
Today, they create iron castings, specialty castings and services and distribution, with their focus for the last 20 years being on heavy manufacturing.
“We provide combinations to that, filling out a much more complete offering to our customer base than anyone else right now,” Mastalir shared.
Iron castings are very prominent in everyday life, such as pipes, houses, cars, phones and belts.
Mastalir explained, “The only way you can get away from any of that stuff [iron castings] is to go out in the woods, camping, get out of your tent, because there’s a lot of cast items in your tent and get away from your tent.”
The castings made at Lawton Standard are forged from mainly recycled scrap metal and supplemented with alloys determined based on the product.
“In some cases, we’re as big a recycler as you’ll find. Most of what we buy is scrap. Old cars, old tractors and old bridges,” said Mastalir.
Lawton Standard was the first foundry in Wisconsin to become Tier Two certified, meaning they go above and beyond to achieve environmental standards such as recycling and wastewater management.
Additionally, every aspect of their products are mainly produced in house, with some rare exceptions.
They do the pre-work engineering, project management, castings for patterns and tools needed, the casting itself and painting.
Mastalir continued, “We supplement to make sure that the customer is getting all that they can get out of us, we can fill a full need, not just a portion of it, not just a fraction of it.”
The foundry is a contract company, meaning that they produce products specially designed for the customer rather than commercially producing the product and sending it out to stores.
One of their most interesting products was a Civil War era cannon that a group of reenacters wanted.
“They wanted one of these cannons and they couldn’t buy one anywhere, so they said ‘we’re gonna make one’ and they came to us to make the cannon for them, and we built a cannon,” Mastalir said.
During manmade and natural disasters, the company was mobilized to help across the country, and the world.
In WWII, Lawton Standard helped produce many products to help the war effort.
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, La., the company worked quickly to produce pumps to help remove the water flooding the city.
Lawton Standard’s customer base is not isolated to Wisconsin, their products are shipped across the country.
Furthermore, they have companies in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Alabama, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.
Lawton Standard is very conscious about fitting the community and not forcing the community to fit around them.
“You’ve got your geographic community, those of us close to here. You’ve got your industry community, so we try to join trade groups and tech groups,” Lawton continued.
The location determines the culture they have in each area making the company’s relationship beneficial to the specific community they are in.
Here in Wisconsin, they have two events coming up for the community:
They are looking for volunteers to participate in Rake Up Green Bay.
This event helps the elderly and disabled by raking the leaves in their lawn in the fall season.
On Oct. 29, at the Resch Center, Lawton Standard will have a booth for the Manufacturing First Expo.
There will be live demonstrations for students that include melting tin and pouring it in the sand to simulate what their foundry does and showcase the importance of iron casting.
“You are never more than 10 feet away from a casting,” Marketing and Communication Coordinator Nate Vandergrift said.
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