Forging ahead with high-performance alloys

IMNA: Please tell us about Materion.
Ong: The Brush Beryllium Company was founded in Cleveland, Ohio in 1931 to commercially develop the beryllium technology of Brush Laboratories.  Brush Laboratories was started in 1921 by Charles Brush Jr and Dr C Baldwin Sawyer, who pioneered the work in extraction of beryllium from ore and the production of beryllium metal, oxide and master alloys.  Brush Beryllium Company purchased the SK Wellman division of Abex Corporation in 1971.  Its name was changed to Brush Wellman Inc.  Brush Wellman’s international organisation was formed in the 1980s with offices in Germany, England and Japan.  The Singapore office was formed in 1992 to provide local service and distribution in Southeast Asia.

In 2000, Brush Wellman Inc and its foreign subsidiaries became a wholly-own subsidiary of a newly created holding company, Brush Engineered Materials Inc. On 8 Mar 2011, the company became Materion Corporation and Brush Wellman Inc became Materion Brush Performance Alloys.  Materion Brush Performance Alloys is a leading supplier of high performance alloys.  We provide high-strength, high-conductivity copper, copper beryllium and specialty alloy products.

As the western world's sole commercially viable source of beryllium ore, Materion is the only fully integrated developer and supplier of engineered beryllium materials, from mining to R&D to mill products and value-added fabrication services.  Our strip and bulk products are manufactured at Materion facilities in Ohio and Pennsylvania and distributed worldwide through a network of company-owned service centers, distributors and agents.

IMNA: How does the name change come about?
Ong: There are 13 subsidiaries with different names under the parent company.  We decided to have a standard name for all companies for branding and recognition purposes and to leverage on each other to get synergy.  Our companies can share resources and customers' database, and tap on each other's strengths.  It will also make it easier for customers to identify all of our subsidiaries under a common name.

IMNA: What do you think are your company's strength?
Ong: Our subsidiaries can leverage on each other's strengths, share resources and shorten the learning curve.  If one subsidiary has a relationship with a particular company, then if any of our other subsidiaries are interested to go after tenders with that particular company, it will be easier as we all share the same name.  The particular company will be more open to talk to other subsidiaries since it already has a working relationship with one subsidiary.  In the past, our subsidiaries had never worked together but now we are working together and this produces synergistic results.  For Materion Brush Performance Alloys, we are more international than the rest of the subsidiaries.  We have offices in Asia.  We opened our China office in 1992.  With our foothold and long experiences, we can help other subsidiaries to penetrate this region.

IMNA: Please give an overview of your company's products.
Ong: Materion is an advanced materials solutions company.  Our products include precious and non-precious specialty metals, inorganic chemicals and powders, specialty coatings, specialty engineered beryllium and copper-based alloys, beryllium and beryllium composites, ceramics and engineered clad and plated metal systems.  As the world's leading supplier of high-performance alloys, Materion Brush Performance Alloys' copper beryllium alloys provide many advantages in demanding automotive, commercial and industrial end-use applications ranginChuck Taylor All Star