Sean C. Morgan
Ti Squared has decided to move to Lebanon within the next few months.
The company manufactures a variety of titanium products for various commercial and industrial applications.
The company is moving, said Facilities and Machining Manager Vince Lowen, but it will be several months before anything happens.
“We’re moving into the old Valley Cabinets building out on Airport Road,” Lowen said. “We’ve outgrown this building. There isn’t any room here. There isn’t anywhere to expand. Parking is an issue.
“There are ways we may end up keeping some of the business in this building.”
Whether that will come to fruition is unknown right now, Lowen said, but the main operation will move.
The company, which employs 61, has been steadily growing in recent years.
“We went through our slow period back when things crashed in ’08,” Lowen said. Ti Squared dramatically scaled back, but now the business is coming back.
“Right now, we’re busy, and the market seems to be pretty active,” Lowen said. The company is expecting to grow further.
“We did look around town here and tried to work out something,” Lowen said. The company worked with the city to find an option, but “nothing was going to work for us economically.”
Ti Squared started in 1995 as InvesTiCast at its current location at Main and Clark Mill, manufacturing titanium golf club heads, Lowen said. All of that business ended up going to China. Ti Squared saw it coming and started diversifying its products.
“So when all of the golf club companies went to China virtually overnight, they had the beginnings of a market to go on here.”
InvesTiCast changed its name to Ti Squared in 2002.
Titanium is lightweight, strong and noncorrosive, Lowen said.
Today, Ti Squared manufactures products for sporting goods, medical supplies, tools and industrial and commercial applications. The pieces are usually supplied to other companies and assembled into their products. Examples include nose cones for impact wrenches and the scales – the outer handle – for Leatherman charger tools.
Ti Squared sometimes also manufactures aerospace and military prototypes, and the company makes some jewelry.
“We’re excited to be growing and to have the opportunity to get into a facility that’s going to allow us to grow even more,” Lowen said.