Incorporated on February 6, 1980, Wrayco Industries, Inc. has quickly grown into a world-class sheet metal fabricator. Built on the strong morals and high standards of founders Bobbie and Willard Wray (pictured at left), and founder and current President Gary Gibb, Wrayco has overcome some tremendous barriers to achieve the status it holds today.
Wrayco began to establish its reputation by producing made-to-print fabrications for Towmotor Corporation, located in Mentor, Ohio. Other firms such as, Sullair Corporation and B. F. Goodrich, also provided Wrayco with some much needed work in the early 1980’s. Wrayco grew to a modest-sized company, employing around 40 people at the end of 1985.
In 1986, something happened that would forever change Wrayco. Because of our affiliation with Towmotor Corporation, a division of Caterpillar Inc., we were able to catch the eye of the Caterpillar Plant located in Aurora, Illinois. They were looking for a capable niche supplier able to produce large fuel tanks for the construction equipment industry, something we had never done before.
We were able to convince them of our willingness and our competence and we were awarded the contract to produce the fuel tanks in the spring of 1986. We currently produce a number of different commodities for the Aurora plant including those same fuel tanks, fenders, and a variety of other items.
With this newfound rapport, we were able to begin seeking out new work from a multitude of facilities within the Caterpillar organization. Today we provide fabrications to over 10 different Caterpillar plants nationwide and employ over 100 hardworking people. (Some of the machines we currently produce fabrications for are pictured on this page and the following page)
During our rapid growth period in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we began to suffer some growing pains. Expansion was inevitable and, shortly after the addition to our workload, we began construction of the first addition to our original facility. The new addition provided us with adequate production and storage space for a very short time. In order to keep up with our continuing growth, we eventually completed 5 different additions, rented a pilot facility in “the valley”, and finally constructed a state of the art fabrication facility at our current location in late 1997.
Through 1998, the changes continued to come fast and furious, including the addition of 2 horizontal Machining Centers, a very complicated tube project and most notable of all, retirements. On April 1, 1998, both Bobbie and Willard Wray made the very difficult decision to walk away from the business they had watched grow from its infancy. Both had spent countless hours molding Wrayco into the company it had grown to be, but nonetheless the tearful decision was made to retire. Wrayco would now move forward under the dedication and decision making of Gary Gibb, the company’s very capable Vice-President.
In the year 2000 and beyond, with the transition period to new ownership and management finally complete, we expect to begin another facility expansion, and acquire some additional, technologically advanced equipment including both welding robots and lasers to help meet our customer’s demands of high quality, low cost and on-time delivery.
We hope that we will be blessed with continued growth and prosperity, so that we may continue the extraordinary relationships we have made with all of our customers, employees, and associates over the past 20 years and that we will be able to continue those associations throughout the next 20 years.
