An awards ceremony held at The Jackson Laboratory facility in Farmington on April 13 celebrated the induction of three iconic high-tech manufacturing companies from Connecticut into the American Manufacturing Hall of Fame (AMHoF).
ASML of Wilton joined General Dynamics Electric Boat of Groton and RBC Bearings of Oxford in accepting the honor conferred by the College of Technology within Housatonic Community College. The AMHoF was founded in 2014 to celebrate the many technological innovations and examples of manufacturing excellence.
Additionally, 41 companies across Connecticut were recognized for their participation in the Artemis 1 Moonshot program with the Boldly Go! Award. The Artemis 1 flight in 2022 provided an important test of many mission critical systems for the 2024 Artemis 2, which will be the first manned spaceflight to the moon since 1972.
ASML was honored on the strength of its history and continuing contributions to the world of high-tech manufacturing. Its Wilton facilities are where important advances in the history of photolithography, the process by which circuits are printed on semiconductors to produce microchips, originated in the 1960s.
Today, the facility features 3,000 employees undertaking research and development and manufacture of the machines necessary to manufacture the economically and strategically vital resource. A major expansion currently underway is expected to both increase the facility’s production capacity and add 1000 new jobs to the community.
Janet Prisloe, a principal at professional services firm and founding sponsor of the 2023 AMHoF CliftonLarsonAllen, welcomed ASML in the ceremony by noting the ubiquity of their work.
“Our first inducted company changes the world one nanometer at a time. ASML is a world leader in the semi-conductor industry, and in fact ASML is probably part of the electronic device you’re using right now,” Prisloe said.
Louis Lu, a senior vice president at ASML and head of all operations in Connecticut, accepted the award on the company’s behalf.
“On behalf of ASML, our 3,000 employees at ASML Wilton, and those who came before us, thank you for this honor,” Lu said as he accepted the award, which was locally manufactured at Ashcroft Pewter. “What our employees do in Connecticut every day has a profound impact on the world we live in today, and we are also devoted to tomorrow. We innovate every day to advance manufacturing capabilities of the semiconductor industry, and also to push technologies to the limit of physics. We are very proud to be part of this 350-year story as the birthplace of invention and manufacturing.”
Connecticut U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal also spoke at the event, thanking the inducted businesses for their contributions to not only Connecticut but to the country as a whole.
“My family’s story is a story of Connecticut manufacturing,” noted Murphy. “Both my great-grandfather, who immigrated to this country from Poland, his son, my grandfather, built our family based on jobs in the New Britain ball bearing plants.”
Murphy also noted that he keeps offices beneath the dome of the old Colt Manufacturing plant, which he credited with being the birthplace of the modern assembly line and interchangeable parts even ahead of Henry Ford’s Model T plant.
Blumenthal, addressing the audience remotely after his leg was broken during the recent UConn victory parade, agreed with Murphy that the time has come to “reshore and resurge American manufacturing.”
“We don”™t have gold mines, we don’t have oil wells, we don’t have the Grand Canyon. What we have is really smart, talented people that we develop through great educational institutions,” Blumenthal said. “œWe need to keep our eye on the ball because workforce development is the great challenge of our time.”
The ceremony also served as a fundraising event for students at Housatonic Community College earning certificate, associate, and bachelor’s degrees in STEM disciplines. The prior six events raised over $300,000 in total for scholarships and educational programs.
