Community Support
For the past several years J.H. Benedict Company has been a proud sponsor of the Formula SAE team at Bradley University. Each Year a team of mechanical engineering seniors builds a formula car to compete in the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Formula Car. This activity is performed as part of their required senior capstone project experience.
J.H. Benedict offers students the opportunity to work side by side with our engineers and skilled craftsman during critical design and fabrication phases. Student actually operate the machinery used to fabricate many of the critical one off components used in the assembly of the teams formula car.
J.H. Benedict Co., Inc
3211 North Main Street
East Peoria, IL 61611
Phone:(309) 694-3111
Fax: (309) 694-1363
About JHB
J. H. Benedict Co., Inc. was founded in the spring of 1945 to serve a particular need in Central Illinois. Mr. Benedict, “Ben”, saw a need for a machine shop devoted to the designing and building of stamping dies, jigs and fixtures. His motto was “Make things right.”
At this time World War II was still the foremost concern of everyone, but was shortly to be replaced by peace and the consumer. The first Benedict customers included Caterpillar Tractor Co., Gale Products (O.M.C.), Altorfer Bros. Co, (ABC), and L.R. Nelson. A photo of the personnel taken in June of 1946 shows Ben with one office worker, Ruth Morrison; the foreman,
Art Hopkins; design supervisor, Harry Eirmann; eleven toolmakers, one apprentice and six designers. The building, a former speakeasy, “The Blue Goose”, was still decorated inside with black silhouettes of ’29 Flappers on a silver background. But the equipment included a Moore Jig Borer, a Monarch Tool Room Lathe, three Browne & Sharp Surface grinders, Bridgeports and a Landis Universal Cylindrical Grinder.
The equipment was better than the building and the people better than the equipment. This is true today, even with a new and modern energy-efficient building and state-of-the-art equipment.
Equipment additions were as follows: 1956 – a Jig Grinder; 1957 – a Rockford Planer; in the course of time four building additions; air conditioning and more personnel; 1972 – the first CNC equipment; 1974—a flat bed plotter; 1978 – a Sundstrand OM2A Five Axis Machining Center.
Today, a walk through the shop would reveal three 4-axis machining centers, two CNC Wire E.D.M.’s, four Ram Type E.D.M.’s and a host of up-to-date well-maintained machinery.
The company started operation in our new facility on November 1, 1982. Four days later Ben passed away, but his business precepts continue. We look forward to the 21st century and all its opportunities with confident anticipation.