It's been 13 years since I visited Haas Automation's headquarters in California. it was a pretty unforgettable experience - I'd just taken over as Editor of PES and I'd literally never seen a factory this big before!
Whether you're a Haas machine user or not, it's truly phenomenal how Gene Haas has built this colossal empire from his original product - a rotary indexer (in 1983 I believe). This video takes a look at the Demo Room at Oxnard which is home to Haas' first ever machine, the VF-1 VMC. According to the video - it still runs today.
This machine was launched in 1988 in time for IMTS that year. The objective behind the whole thing was to build and sell a CNC machine tool for less than $50,000. It succeeded with absolutely bucketloads sold over the years; in fact recently Haas was presented with an award for the sale of its 200,000th machine.
Haas Automation www.haas.co.uk
