“The Greater Beloit area is the ideal location for our business.”
When K.Y. Taylor and his son Roger opened North American Tool in 1986, Curt Lansbery served as one of the first members of the company’s board of directors. Two years later, Lansbery sold his Beloit funeral home business to join the Taylors fulltime. The decision to join the thriving company, he said, was a relatively easy one.
“I was impressed with the reputation of K.Y. Taylor and what he had accomplished,” said Lansbery, who rose through the ranks and became CEO in 2004 when Roger passed away. “I was in a small local business and wanted the opportunity for a broader experience on a more national level.”
North American Tool special taps, dies and gages
Today, North American Tool, headquartered in South Beloit, is a global company making a complete line of made-to-order cutting tools such as special taps, dies and thread gages. A special tap is a cutting tool that cuts internal threads and is manufactured with specifications that vary in diameter, thread combinations and dimensions that are found in anything from eye glasses to the Space Shuttle.
“The Greater Beloit area is the ideal location for our business,” says Lansbery. “Being close to the UPS hub in Rockford is a plus for us; there is a solid group of employees here that, while we could leave, it would be difficult to retain that kind of quality workforce. We’ve been recruited to other parts of the country, but, frankly, there is no good reason for us to leave. We really think the Greater Beloit area gives us the best competitive advantage.”