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CPI Aero, founded by a former Grumman director, survived the departure of Grumman and Fairchild Republic. It wasn't easy.
Now, though, the Edgewood-based maker of components for airplanes is getting a new lease on life - along with many other local manufacturers. The firm has hired 250 workers in five years - and is looking for more.
While 70 percent of its business is with the military, it now does 30 percent with commercial contractors. Contracts include parts to maintain old Grumman aircraft as well as many new models.
"As our revenue has gone up, our labor force has gone up proportionately," CPI Aero CEO Douglas McCrosson said of his firm's hiring spree.
Other manufacturers and distributors are hiring as manufacturing makes a comeback, adding jobs on Long Island for the first time in years.
"Our company has seen substantial growth over the last few years," said Michael Eichinger, COO of Bay Fastening Systems, a distributor in Farmingdale.
A & Z Pharmaceutical and Amneal Pharmaceuticals, the nation's sixth biggest generic drug maker, are part of a growing generic drug manufacturing industry as pills, not planes, pop out of Long Island assembly lines.
"Manufacturing is critically important to a healthy economy," said Jon Cooper, president of Westbury-based Spectronics, which makes products using ultraviolet light. "Manufacturing is the heart and soul of Long Island."
Companies are even teaming to grow, cut costs and be more efficient. Bay Shore-based Snake Tray, which manufactures and installs cables for solar systems, and Holbrook-based Gundy Powder, which services the metal manufacturing, solar, cable management and commercial building sectors, plan to jointly purchase a new manufacturing site that will help them expand.
And LIF Industries, which makes fireproof metal doors, plans to add 21 jobs to its existing 350 on Long Island and nearly double the size of its Port Washington factory
"There is a lot of competition in the metropolitan New York area," LIF Industries President Vincent Gallo said, adding it's crucial to find "ways to increase efficiency and capacity while effectively managing costs."
Numbers game
Until recently, talk about manufacturing on Long Island often focused on paradise lost and the past. The story began with Grumman helping win World War II. But when prime...