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10 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JANUARY 27, 2025 Air Industries Group CEO Lou Melluzzo. At left is a landing gear assembly for the military's E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. HBJ PHOTOS | STEVE LASCHEVER Roller-coaster Ride With World War II-era roots, Barkhamsted machine shop Sterling Engineering aims to double in size amid broader turnaround effort on other products like jet engines, in particular helicopters, submarines, ground turbines — and they thrived," Lavieri recalled. "At one point in the late 80s, I think we got up to 220 employees." But eventually, the family succes- sion plan faltered and the younger Lavieri looked to sell the business. Enter Air Industries Group, a publicly traded company that has its flagship facility at Bay Shore on Long Island, and at that time was in growth mode. Turnaround task The New York company actually made three Connecticut acquisi- tions in 2015 — Sterling came into the fold alongside South Windsor's AMK Welding and Waterbury military products packager Eur-Pac. "In 2017 I came into a company that had nine different divisions, nine different little businesses," Melluzzo said. A New Britain resident, he'd previ- ously been chief operating officer of EDAC Technologies in Cheshire. Melluzzo was brought in to execute a turnaround at Air Industries Group; the first task was to streamline and cut costs. In Long Island, he consolidated all of Air Industries' holdings into a single campus that remains the group's headquarters. He closed the Waterbury business and sold South Windsor. But in Sterling Engineering he saw potential. "We went on a full-bore offense on business development during COVID," he said. "We really increased By Harriet Jones hjones@hartfordbusiness.com "W e're looking to expand our footprint in Connecticut a lot over the next coming years," Lou Melluzzo said as he surveyed the busy shop floor at Sterling Engineering in Barkhamsted. " I really want to expand this facility to almost double the size." Improbably sited in the midst of quiet farmland in the Litchfield Hills, this 75,000-square-foot facility employing some 50 people, makes turbine and jet-engine components, helicopter assemblies and ground power turbines as well as aircraft landing gear. Its parent, Air Industries Group, has a variety of long-term agreements with most of the country's big original equipment manufacturers, including Sikorsky, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce and Electric Boat. Eighty percent of its business is from military programs. Melluzzo, the CEO of Air Industries, has been riding a roller-coaster in the last few years since he took over. But he says he's within sight of a successful turnaround of this historic business, with a major expansion plan in the works. Farming roots Sterling is historic because it's been a Barkhamsted fixture since World War II. In 1941, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, John A. Lavieri, who had been farming this land with his family, decided to get in on the war effort by building a machine shop. "They started by cleaning out one of the barns and fixing it up to a higher-quality building and acquiring two or three machines to move in there, displacing the cattle and the horses to another outbuilding," said his grandson, John N. Lavieri, in a recent interview. Lavieri Sr. knew the trade: he had trained as a toolmaker during World War I, and worked at other shops around the Hartford area. "There was a tremendous amount of business available for all kinds of shops, even little startups like this embryonic company," said his grandson. "And they were swamped in work, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week to support the war effort." That's how Sterling Engineering was born. John N. Lavieri, brought up in the business, took over as president in the 1980s. "They ended up evolving out of the toolmaking business and into the production of component parts AT A GLANCE Sterling Engineering Industry: Manufacturing Top Executive: Lou Melluzzo, CEO of parent company Air Industries Group HQ: 236 New Hartford Road, Barkhamsted Employees: About 50 Contact: 860-379-3366