Kennametal Celebrates 75 Years of Advancing Innovation

Founded in 1938, Philip McKenna´s breakthrough invention of tungsten-titanium carbide alloys started a company of 12 employees and $30,000 in revenues in its first year. Since then, the company he founded — subsequently renamed Kennametal — has grown 100,000-fold to nearly $3 billion in revenues, serving more than 80,000 customers in 60-plus countries.

The company´s success today holds true to McKenna´s focus on continuously improving customers´ productivity. Kennametal industrial technologies today enable advanced manufacturing; effective road rehabilitation; safe, efficient mining and energy production; and peak performance in transportation equipment, from planes, to trains and automobiles.

"We drive a strong culture of innovation and performance at Kennametal, starting with knowledgeable people and proprietary material science to develop better tooling technologies and engineered components for the world´s most demanding work," says Carlos Cardoso, Kennametal chairman, president and CEO. "Today, we consistently achieve 40 percent or more of sales each year from new products that offer customers at least 20% performance improvement."

March 1st begins a year-long celebration with various activities planned throughout the globe.