Houdaille Industries was a diversified manufacturing company which produced automotive products, industrial products, machine tools, construction materials and contracting. The company had its beginnings in Buffalo, New York, in 1919, where the Houde Engineering Corporation manufactured shock absorbers that had been invented and patented in France by Maurice Houdaille (1880-1953). The company continued to grow with the automobile industry, and through diversification, until 1987 when it was forced to liquidate most of its assets to satisfy obligations to investors from a 1979 leveraged buy out.
History
Houde Engineering
On March 1, 1909, French engineer and inventor Maurice Houdaille (1880–1953) filed for a patent for a shock absorbing apparatus. was granted 7 September 1909. In 1915, French born import specialist Paul Victor Clodio (1882-1928), acquired the rights, from Maurice Houdaille, to manufacture and sell the Houdaille shock absorber in the United States. Clodio founded the Houdaille Shock Absorber Co., Inc. in New York City.
On January 27, 1919, Buffalo, NY automotive engineer Albert B. Shultz (1877–1932), and his brother, B. David Schultz, a Rolls-Royce dealer, filed articles of incorporation for the Houde Engineering Corporation with New York State. The name Houde was an attempt to anglicize Houdaille. Houde acquired manufacturing and selling rights for the Houdaille shock absorber from importer Clodio. Clodio retained the selling rights for the New York City area. In 1925 Houde acquired the New York Houdaille Company and moved manufacturing operations from 1400 West Avenue, Buffalo, to a newly constructed plant at 533-537 East Delavan Avenue, Buffalo, to facilitate its growth.
In 1927, the patents were purchased from the original French owners and Houde became the sole manufacturer and distributor of the Houdaille designed shock absorber in the United States. The following October, Henry Ford wrote to Shultz and told him that if Houde would hire then 30 year old mechanical engineer Ralph Peo to supervise production at the plant, then Ford would purchase Houdaille shocks for all of the new Ford automobiles. Production of shock absorbers doubled.
In late September, 1928, Shultz sold Houde to Frederick B. Cooley and a small syndicate of investors for $4.3 million. Two months later Cooley and his investors sold Houde to Claire L. Barnes for $6 million.
Houdaille-Hershey
Detroit industrialist Claire L. Barnes (1880-1947) created the Houdaille Corporation of Michigan in 1928 to acquire Houde Engineering from Cooley. On January 30, 1929, Barnes consolidated his new organization with two other companies, Oakes Products and Hershey Manufacturing, both involved in manufacturing products for the automobile industry, renaming it Houdaille-Hershey Corporation with its headquarters in Detroit. The Oakes Products Company, of Indianapolis, had been incorporated in Indiana in 1912 and manufactured spare wheel and tire locks, door locks, cooling fans, air cleaners and carburetors. In 1919 Hershey Manufacturing Company was organized in Colorado. Hershey manufactured ignition and steering wheel locks with plants in Chicago and Detroit.
After Barnes created the Houdaille-Hershey Corporation it became one of the country's largest suppliers of automobile parts to the Detroit manufacturers. In August of 1929, Schultz resigned as president of the company and Ralph Peo was named vice president and general manager of the Houde Engineering Division of Houdaille-Hershey Corporation.
The company continued its acquisition of other automobile related manufactures The Skinner Company, Ltd of Gananoque, Ontario, which manufactured auto bumpers; Muskegon Motors Specialties, which made crankshafts and camshafts; Biflex Products Corporation, bumpers; Lion Cover Company, metal tire covers; and General Bumper Corporation, one of the world's largest manufacturers of spring bumpers for automobiles. The company had plants in Buffalo, New York, Chicago, Illinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, Muskegon, Michigan, Decatur, Illinois and Gananoque and Oshawa, Canada, and was being considered for acquisition by both Ford and GM.
In November 1932, the New York Stock Exchange approved the listing of its class A common stock on the exchange.
In June 1937, Charles Getler was elected president of the company and Barnes became chairman of the board, Ralph Peo was chosen as vice-president. Barnes retired in 1940.