Horst Celebrates New Facility

Yesterday morning, CBIA attended Horst Engineering’s ribbon cutting ceremony at its new facility on the East Hartford-South Windsor line.
Guests included company advisors, industry representatives, and representatives from municipal and state governments.

Founded in 1946, Horst Engineering, a family owned business is a contract manufacturer of precision machined components and assemblies for aerospace and other high technology industries.
While the company will remain in its other locations on Cedar Street in East Hartford, it felt the need to expand to another facility because it has closed its operations in Mexico.
In Mexico, Horst had 50 employees doing a variety of work, not just screw machining, and it was looking to expand further.
Labor costs were one-quarter to one-third as much as wages in Connecticut, but other expenses were high, and the supply of skilled workers was scarce.
“In the end, we decided that it wasn’t a big enough advantage,” said Scott Livingston, the Horst CEO and grandson of the founder, Harry Livingston (born in Germany as Horst Liebenstein).
The company now has 105 employees in Connecticut and 45 in Massachusetts.
In recent weeks, I’ve attended similar events at other manufacturing companies around the state. These are all positive signs that manufacturing is alive and well in Connecticut. In fact in some sectors, it’s thriving.