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www.HartfordBusiness.com July 4, 2016 • Hartford Business Journal 3 Greenberg is Birken Manufacturing's third-generation pilot By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com V owing you'll never do something can some- times guarantee that you will. Ask Gary S. Greenberg, third-generation owner/presi- dent of Birken Manufacturing Co. in Bloomfield. "I swore as a kid I would never be in this busi- ness,'' said Greenberg, whose great-uncle, Louis B. Rogow, co-founded Birken in 1943 to make industrial gauges. It was Greenberg's father, Sidney, an aero-engineer who married into the Rogow family and who later succeeded his wife's uncle as CEO. Pressed by his father, who put Birken on its aerospace track, the younger Greenberg swept Birken's floors and handled other shop chores when he wasn't in school or had extra time on his hands. Later, Greenberg went off to college, then law school, setting up a practice in California. Years later, Greenberg had a change of heart and joined his father at Birken. Today, Birken stands as an archetype of a family enterprise, begun from scratch and nurtur- ing a niche in which, despite economic and operational ebbs and flows, still manages to expand and thrive into a new century. It operates from a 65,000-square-foot fac- tory on Old Windsor Road that it relocated to from Franklin Street in Hartford's South End in 1962; across the street is a 40,000-square- foot warehouse that Greenberg says may someday accommodate an expansion of Birken's production facilities. "I think the product is fantastic,'' Green- berg says of Birken's specialty as a metal- finishing shop for cast and/or forged jet- engine components. "We do very high-tech, advanced manufacturing.'' In 1982, Greenberg returned to Con- necticut and joined his dad running Birken, as a vice president. In 2007, he became president/CEO. During his 34 years there, he said Birken has continued spreading its wings, special- izing in complex turbine-engine parts for top U.S. suppliers such as Pratt & Whitney, Hamilton Sundstrand, General Electric and Europe's Airbus and Rolls Royce PLC. Birken's computer numerically con- trolled-machine (CNC) finishing mostly involves removing metal burrs and smooth- ing to a near-glass polish the mounting sur- faces on lightweight cast aluminum and magnesium parts for jet-engine casings and fuel-system components for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and military helicopters. Continued 860.871.1111 Toll Free: 800.741.6367 nemsi.com License #'s: E1-104939 • S1-302974 • P1-203519 • F1-10498 • SM1-192 • MC-1134 MECHANICAL • ELECTRICAL • PLUMBING • SHEET METAL • BUILDING AUTOMATION • FACILITIES SERVICES SERVICE SOLUTIONS…ONE SOURCE The company that builds and installs the critical systems in virtually every type of facility is the same company you can rely on to maintain them. For 50 years, our clients have trusted us to deliver end-to-end facilities solutions, so they can focus on their core business. We are experts in: Facilities Services Preventive Maintenance Programs Onsite Operations & Maintenance 196 6-2016 196 6-2016 (Above) Gary S. Greenberg, president, Birken Manufacturing Co. (Right) Birken employee Kevin Saynganthone. P H O T O S | C O N T R I B U T E D