From a Farmer's Garage to the Frontlines of Aerospace
In 1957, Louis Seyer — a self-taught tinkerer and World War II veteran — used the modest proceeds from a kitchen invention called the Easy Egg Cracker to purchase a struggling machine shop in a farmer’s garage outside St. Louis. Nearly seven decades later, the company he founded has grown into one of the aerospace industry’s most trusted precision manufacturers, serving some of the largest defense and commercial aerospace primes in the United States from a 250,000-square-foot campus in St. Peters, Missouri.
Today, Seyer Industries is a third-generation, family-owned business employing approximately 370 people. Its customer list reads like a who’s who of the aerospace and defense world: Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Gulfstream, and the U.S. Navy, among others. And at the center of that growth story is a calculated, long-term investment in some of the most precise machining technology available — HERMLE 5-axis CNC machines and their proprietary automation systems.
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Seyer Industries works with HWP Rigging to unload their latest HERMLE C 62 5-axis machine at their facility in St. Peters, Missouri. -
Seyer Industries 5-axis department lead, Jason Kinsler, inspects a part machined on the HERMLE C 42 U 5-axis CNC machine. -
Aluminum billet structural shifter arms machined on the HERMLE 5-axis CNC machine at Seyer Industries. -
The HERMLE C 62 machine operator inspects an aerospace component at Seyer Industries.
BUILDING A LEGACY, ONE DECADE AT A TIME
The Seyer name has been synonymous with precision manufacturing in the St. Louis region for generations. After Lou Seyer founded the original Seyer-Buckner shop, the company spent its early decades serving any customer who needed machined parts — a classic job shop model. That changed in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Seyer began doing work for McDonnell Douglas Aircraft and found a niche in complex military support equipment. The company relocated to its current St. Peters location in 1981 and never looked back.
“Originally, we were doing anything and everything for anybody,” says Mark Seyer, President of Seyer Industries and Lou’s grandson. “Over the course of a couple of decades — probably in the late ’80s, early ’90s — is really where we got into aerospace.”
What began as a specialty in complex ground support equipment gradually evolved into a full-spectrum aerospace supplier. Recognizing that support equipment alone represented a narrow slice of the aviation market, Seyer began responding to customer requests to expand into precision flight hardware and structural components — a transition that demanded a fundamental leap in machining capability.
THE 5-AXIS TURNING POINT
By 2010, the aerospace market’s demand for tighter tolerances and more complex geometries had outgrown Seyer’s 3-axis capabilities. Flight components — from rotor bearings for military helicopters to arresting hooks used to land aircraft on carrier decks — required a precision platform that conventional machines simply could not deliver. The company needed 5-axis machining, and after extensive research, the Seyer family made a decision that would reshape the business.
Their first HERMLE — a C 40 — arrived in 2008 and quickly earned near-mythic status on the shop floor. “The energy around those machines was that they were the holy grail of machines,” recalls Jason Kinsler, who has spent the last eight-plus years running HERMLE equipment exclusively and now leads Seyer’s entire 5-axis HERMLE division. “I’ve run a lot of machines, and I have yet to find one that compared to a HERMLE. That’s just the truth.”
That first machine, now over 15 years old, is still running production today — a testament to HERMLE’s engineering and Seyer’s maintenance culture alike. The C 40 was followed by three C 400 machines and, over time, a fleet that now numbers 17 HERMLE units out of roughly 90 total CNC machines on the floor.
Ray Gaudette, Seyer’s Director of Operations and a 19-year company veteran who worked his way up from machinist to the executive team, credits HERMLE’s precision with fundamentally changing how Seyer approaches complex aerospace work. “They’re able to eliminate some other operations we had,” he says. “Maybe before we used a couple different machines, even grinding or post-machining operations, that now can be done in one operation on the HERMLE machine because of its ability to hold tolerances.”
A COMPANY IN EXPANSION MODE
Recent years have marked an accelerating growth trajectory for Seyer Industries. In 2017, the company announced a $25 million, 70,000-square-foot facility expansion in St. Peters — bringing the campus to nearly 200,000 square feet — and projected the creation of 125 new jobs. That forecast proved conservative: the company now operates from a 250,000-square-foot footprint and employs approximately 370 people, up from around 80 when Gaudette started nearly two decades ago.
Then, in September 2024, Seyer made its most significant strategic move yet: the acquisition of ORCO Precision Machine, a Cuba, Missouri-based firm with a 38-year track record in aerospace precision machining. ORCO’s 21,000-square-foot facility houses 20 CNC machining centers and brings additional capacity and flexibility to Seyer’s growing book of business.
“This acquisition will provide Seyer with greater capacity and additional flexibility to support existing work,” the company stated at the time of the announcement. For existing Seyer customers, the integration was designed to be seamless.
The company’s performance has drawn repeated recognition from its largest customers. Northrop Grumman honored Seyer Industries with its Supplier Excellence Award for both 2023 and 2024 achievements — consecutive years of recognition from one of the world’s leading defense primes. In presenting the 2023 award, Northrop Grumman Corporate Vice President Matt Bromberg noted that Seyer had been “instrumental in aiding Northrop Grumman with manufacturing and distribution goals” and had helped “advance national security solutions and achieve mission success.”
BUILT FOR WHAT’S COMING
The aerospace industry is at an inflection point. Urban air mobility, attritable aircraft programs, accelerated development cycles, and expanded automation are reshaping the supply chain. Seyer’s leadership is watching carefully — and positioning accordingly.
“The world is in an interesting time right now, and we’re right in the middle of it all,” says Gaudette. “As we continue to execute for our customers, I think the future is exciting.”
The company’s private ownership structure, which has enabled long-horizon investment decisions unconstrained by quarterly earnings pressure, is central to that confidence. “Private ownership provides financial stability, customer focus, and long-term commitment,” the company states in its mission. The HERMLE machines on the floor — some now 15+ years old and still holding tolerances measured in the ten-thousandths of an inch — are a physical expression of that philosophy.
For Kinsler, the message to any manufacturer evaluating the same investment decision is simple: “They are pricey. But if a person or a business owner is on the fence about buying a HERMLE machine — pull the trigger. You won’t be disappointed.”
From a farmer’s garage to a 250,000-square-foot aerospace manufacturing campus, from a catalog kitchen gadget to components that help land fighter jets on aircraft carriers — the story of Seyer Industries is, in many ways, the story of American manufacturing at its best: family-driven, precision-obsessed, and relentlessly committed to earning the trust of the most demanding customers in the world.
