LAKE FOREST, Calif., June 18, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In his role at AC&A, Smith will be responsible for all composite operations including driving the current development of the composite manufacturing facility, recruiting and employing a team of composite technicians whom he will oversee. Smith will also be involved in the day-to-day communications, process and development of composite projects and technical life cycles with AC&A's valued clients.
AC&A has undergone a significant growth phase over the last few years due to increased demand for its full service manufacturing offerings to the world's leading aerospace and automotive companies. Most recently AC&A has doubled its manufacturing facilities and occupied a new building across from its headquarters to cater to the growing composite structure production parts business category. The addition of Steve Smith will be the driving force behind the composite business team and expansion. Specializing in 5-axis machining up to 30 ft, AC&A offers complete composite capabilities and a line of services from design, machining, analysis, prototyping and manufacturing of advanced composite tooling and composite part production.
Smith comes to AC&A with over 27 years of experience and achievements in the advance composite and automotive industries. Most recently Smith served as the Director of Composites at SpaceX, where he was responsible for the manufacturing of the entire composite contents of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon capsule. At SpaceX, Smith spearheaded the SpaceX composite shop by recruiting and managing a team of 56 and has been accredited for breaking the "big aerospace" approach to composite manufacturing by reducing cost, simplifying a complicated process and bringing an automotive touch to the aerospace composite structures production process. Prior to SpaceX, Smith served as the Composite Shop Manager at Swift Engineering out of San Clemente, California where he over-saw the composite production of experimental aircraft, Indy cars UAV's and structures.
Welcoming Smith to AC&A, CEO and President, Andrea Cecutti said: "Steve brings extensive experience in the areas of advanced composite engineering, management, business strategy and will be a strong driving asset to our continued growth and expansion. Steve joining the company is a testament to AC&A's future leading position in composite part production."
Smith said "It is a deep honor and privilege to be appointed to this position. I could not be more excited about the opportunities and possibilities that lie ahead as AC&A continues amazing growth within the composites production side of the business. I'm looking forward to drawing on the aerospace sector experience I have gained over the 3 decades to contribute to AC&A's on-going success."
Today, AC&A's team is not only capable of composite tooling but now can support composite structure production.
About AC&A
AC&A is a vertically integrated manufacturer of large, complex composite tooling. AC&A designs, develops, and manufactures production parts and tooling for the world's leading aerospace and automotive companies. Specializing in 5-axis machining, AC&A has established a track record for applying leading edge technology and world-class expertise to the design, engineering, fabricating, and machining of complex high-precision, cost-effective, close-tolerance production parts and tooling. Company founder Andrea Cecutti has over 20 years of experience with 5-axis machinery and manufacturing applications in the aerospace and automotive industries. Andrea founded AC&A in order to bring innovative design and development solutions to high-speed machining, quality prototypes, molds, and 3-D parts to market. AC&C takes pride in employing cutting edge technologies, is equipped with a team of out of the box solution experts and maintains the latest state-of-the-art 5-axis machinery. As a result AC&A has earned a solid reputation as an industry-leading provider of high quality, cost-effective parts. Certified ISO 9001:2000 and AS9100B. For more information please visit www.Acamfg.com.
Composite Equipment
- New building, additional 10,000sq' for composites with clean room and office space
- Walk-in Oven, Wisconsin 9'0" W x 30'0" L x 8'0" H, Expandable to 46' long, 650f
- Autoclave, TEC 4' x 9' 250psi, 650f
- Seamless Modeling Paste, Tartler, paste dispensing machine
- Automated Cloth Cutter, Autometrix M3