Powder Metals Fabricator Atlas Pressed Metals Diversifies Appeal to Customers

When Atlas Pressed Metals was a young company, it was forced to look beyond automakers that buy about three-quarters of the parts made by the powder metals industry for business.

“Large auto companies don't usually look at companies with 20 employees,” said Jude Pfingstler, president of the family-owned manufacturer in DuBois.

Finding other markets for the gears, bearings and other specialty equipment Atlas makes is paying dividends as the growing company with 85 employees serves a more diverse range of customers and is less reliant on one market for its business. Less than a quarter of the parts it presses and sinters go to the auto industry; appliances, lawn and garden equipment and business machines take the rest.

“It has helped in some of the slowdowns in the markets,” said Pfingstler, 38, whose father, Richard “Dick” Pfingstler, and grandfather founded the business in 1980.

Such diversification, plus close attention to customers are important to business at Atlas, given the relatively small size of the powder metals fabrication industry at about $3 billion.

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