Orion Corp. (USA; website) is celebrating its 40th year in business by bucking the industry's gloomy outlook by growing and looking forward to another significant sales bump into 2009.

Founded in 1968 and headquartered in Grafton, Wisconsin, Orion manufactures hydrodynamic bearings for high-speed rotating machinery: turbines, generators, compressors and gear drives in markets such as power generation, oil and gas, petrochemical and marine. The company also manufactures specialty bearings for individual applications.

Orion pivoted shoe journal bearings

Orion's product line includes pivoted shoe journal bearings, equalizing and non-equalizing tilting-shoe thrust bearings, sleeve bearings, and flat and tapered-land thrust plates.

The company's headquarters and primary manufacturing facilities are in Grafton, north of Milwaukee. Grafton, ISO 9001 certified, produces pivoted shoe journal bearings, sleeve bearings, large thrust bearings and most specialty bearings and bearing assemblies. Production capabilities run the gamut from 5/8" to 60" OD. Grafton was recently expanded to allow for a needed 25% bump in production capacity to meet fast-growing demand.

In 1979, Orion set up a second bearing manufacturing plant in Columbus, Nebraska, west of Omaha. While Columbus is a smaller facility with approximately 70 workers, it is ISO 9002 certified and manufactures standard equalizing thrust bearings and sleeve bearings, along with specialty thrust and sleeve bearings. Production capabilities are from 5/8" through 24" OD.

In all, Orion currently employs approximately 250 people across the two locations.

Charles LaBahn, Orion's founder and owner, said: "2008 was an extremely successful year for Orion Corporation. We've had record order entry this year, a 38% increase over 2007, and we expect 2009 to be an even better year."