Legacy Machining Methods Inc. – Our Story
My name is Keith Peterson. I started my first machining business in July of 1989. The company was Western Engravers. At that point, I had been a Toolmaker for 4 years and had an extensive background in precision assembly prior to that. My gift was mechanical aptitude. To me, many things just make sense. At the time, we were limited to industrial engraving, and it was done using manual pantographs. We did well enough to buy my first CNC machine in January of 1991. It was my hope always to transition towards millwork and turning, so rather than buying CNC engravers, I went with CNC milling machining centers.
In 1993, I needed to transition to emphasize machining, so I changed the name of my company to Cornerstone CNC Machining and incorporated it later in 1996. During these years, we had some big opportunities that involved both production engraving and milling almost exclusively for the golf industry. This allowed us to grow in size and scope. We added lathes with live tooling, grinders, and several different-size mills, including some palletized machines. We had little diversification and experienced a severe bell curve to our business year as golf is a seasonally driven industry. We continued to break ground in new industries that included life science, sporting goods, aftermarket automotive, and a few others. After some difficult years at our current size, it became clear to me I needed help on the front end of the business.
In 2005, I made Mike Coldwell my partner. He had come from nearly 30 years of background in cutting tool sales and application. He also possessed a good amount of strategic business sense that was paramount to the success of Cornerstone CNC Machining. We enjoyed 8 successful years together, during which time we processed a host of families of parts, from Xenonics Flashlight components to RF Electronic Enclosures to precision mechanical parts used in the semiconductor industry, along with many others. We incorporated the use of multi-spindle pallet pools and robot loaded, bar fed, twin spindle, twin turret, live tooled lathes with dual C and Y axis, and a screw machine. There was essentially nothing that could be milled or turned that we couldn’t tackle. We have met many wonderful and talented people along the way and had opportunities to be a solution to many of them, some not sure where else to turn.
After several good years, we found ourselves in an unfortunate position between the economic downturn and the military cutbacks that left us with no choice but to close the doors. The overhead was simply too high, and the workload was minimal as far as we could see. We made the decision to close Cornerstone CNC Machining, Inc. in October of 2012. There were many details to resolve regarding the company, but I needed to secure my financial future.
In November of 2012, I formed Legacy Machining Methods, Inc. This was made possible through the loyal patronage of a long-time faithful customer who encouraged me to go on making products for him. I am thankful for the many people who have come alongside me over the years to work together for a common goal. I have gained invaluable insight through it all. It’s been great to be part of a distinguished team of professionals.