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1946 – today
Founded: 1946, Fort Wayne. Ardelle Glaze started Fort Wayne Metals, Inc. in 1946 to make magnetic recording wire — agreed by the Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame profile (2015, quoting his son Scott Glaze), the Waynedale News Waynedale Chamber account (Scott Glaze interview, 20 Dec, year of the 2005 article), Business People and ThomasNet (year founded 1946). No incorporation record was retrieved, so the year rests on the accounts cited. The first plant was on McArthur Drive in Waynedale (Waynedale News); the Waynedale Chamber of Commerce, started in the late 1940s, lists Fort Wayne Metals Company as charter member #8, with Ardelle's signature as proprietor — contemporary corroboration of an operating late- 1940s Waynedale firm.
Founder: Ardelle Glaze (born 1910, West Virginia; grew up in Akron, Ohio; died 1985) — A machinist / research scientist at the University of Chicago's Armour Research Foundation, where he worked on a team that developed magnetic wire recording technology during the war years — the experience the 1946 company was built on (JA profile; Waynedale News).
What it did (first company): Stainless / magnetic recording wire for wire audio recorders, before tape. Scott Glaze's figure — within five years the company made 80% of the recording wire in the United States — is carried as a family/company claim, not as an audited market share (JA profile, Scott Glaze quoted). As tape replaced wire, the focus shifted to other wire products, including, by the late 1950s, wire for medical uses (JA profile).
Course (first company): Grew to about 80 employees by the mid-1960s (both accounts agree). Ardelle was founder and president but, in Scott Glaze's account, "had investors and did not control the company he built" (JA profile). Acquisition chain, kept as the two accounts give it and not merged into one sale: Waynedale News names acquisition by the Wilbur B. Driver Corporation; the JA profile says that when the company "was sold a second time, it became a small component of GTE Sylvania." Fate of the first company: the Fort Wayne plant was closed and production moved to Pennsylvania, with a one/two- year conflict flagged: Waynedale News gives 1968 for the closure and equipment move; the JA profile gives no year, saying only that the plant "was subsequently closed" after the second sale. The entry carries 1968 as the dated account, flagged as single-chain.
Refounding: 1971, with a 1970 variant flagged. Ardelle Glaze, aged 60/61 (JA profile says 60; Waynedale News says 61 — his 1910 birth year supports 61 in 1971; the age is carried as a flagged variant, the year is not in dispute between the family accounts), remortgaged his home, sold his stocks and formed Fort Wayne Metals Research Products Corp., starting in part of the old McArthur Drive building, dedicated from the start to wire for the medical industry (both accounts agree). A 2011 expansion account (Trade & Industry Development / state release) says the Research Products corporation "began operations" in 1970 — carried as a variant against the two family accounts' 1971 formation; incorporation in 1970 / operations in 1971 would reconcile them, but no source in hand says so.
Course (second company): Scott Glaze joined at the 1971 beginning and took over as president/CEO on Ardelle's death in 1985, when the company employed 30 people (JA profile; IBJ's 2024 Indiana 250 profile agrees Scott became president in 1985 with one small facility and 30 employees). Growth thereafter is dated by the accounts: 285 workers in four Fort Wayne plants totalling 250,000 sq ft (Waynedale News, at its 2005 writing); 570 team members across seven Allen County locations in 2011, with production/distribution in Castlebar, Ireland (2011 state release); more than 750 employees and still family-owned in the 2015 JA profile; a $51.1 million expansion announced in 2017 planning up to 337 further hires by 2021, with more than 1,000 employees then in Fort Wayne, Columbia City and Castlebar (IBJ, 18 Oct 2017); over 1,200 employees at the Fort Wayne headquarters with sites in Indiana, Ohio and Ireland in 2022 (Business People); more than 1,500 employees in Indiana, Ohio and Ireland in 2024 (IBJ Indiana 250). Headquarters in hand: 9609 Indianapolis Road / 9609 Ardmore Avenue, Fort Wayne (the two street names appear for the same 9609 address in different accounts — carried as given, not reconciled).
Fate: Still operating, family-owned, headquartered in Fort Wayne. The present company is the 1971 Research Products corporation, not an unbroken continuation of the 1946 corporation: the 1946 firm was sold, its Fort Wayne plant closed (1968), and Ardelle Glaze founded the present firm anew in 1971. Any account printing "founded 1946, operating continuously since" without that break misstates the record as the family itself tells it — the 1946 date is the present company's own claimed founding (its history page: "established in 1946"), carried here with the break stated. Its products today are precision medical- grade wire, strands, cables and components — vascular therapy, cardiac rhythm, endoscopy, orthopaedics, dental, neuromodulation — with, in Business People's 2022 account, more than 90% of its materials ending up in the human body.
Sources:
- Junior Achievement of Northern Indiana, BEL Hall of Fame 2015 profile, Ardelle Glaze (1946 first company, recording wire, 80% claim, ~80 employees mid-1960s, second sale to GTE Sylvania, plant closed to Pennsylvania, 1971 refounding at age 60, d.1985 with 30 employees, 750+ and family-owned in 2015) — https://northernindiana.ja.org/dA/94abbd9f19/file/2015 Ardelle Glaze.pdf
- Waynedale News, "Waynedale Chamber of Commerce Charter Member" (2005; Scott Glaze interview: McArthur Drive 1946, charter member #8, Wilbur B. Driver acquisition, 1968 closure/move to Pennsylvania, 1971 new beginning at age 61, 285 workers / four plants at writing, Indianapolis Road location) — https://waynedalenews.com/2005/01/waynedale-chamber-of-commerce-charter-member/
- Trade & Industry Development, 24 Mar 2011 (established 1946 by Ardelle Glaze; Research Products "began operations" in 1970 — variant flagged; 570 team members, seven Allen County locations; Castlebar, Ireland) — https://www.tradeandindustrydev.com/region/indiana/news/fort-wayne-metals-establishes-whitley-county-4959
- Business People, "Fort Wayne Metals," 10 Feb 2022 (established 1946 by Ardelle Glaze; over 1,200 employees; Indiana, Ohio and Ireland sites; over 90% of materials in the human body)
- Indianapolis Business Journal, 18 Oct 2017 ($51.1M expansion, 337 planned hires; founded 1946; more than 1,000 employees in Fort Wayne, Columbia City and Castlebar) — https://www.ibj.com/articles/65876-manufacturer-of-medical-device-parts-plans-511m-expansion-337-hires
- Indianapolis Business Journal, Indiana 250, Scott Glaze, 2024 (president from 1985, 30 employees then; more than 1,500 employees in Indiana, Ohio and Ireland in 2024) — https://www.ibj.com/articles/indiana-250-scott-glaze