Vision Engineering Celebrates 40 Years by Helping to Feed America

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Vision Engineering Inc. is celebrating their 40th anniversary of the opening of their US headquarters on February 6th. To commemorate this milestone, Vision Engineering Inc. will donate $40 to the national charity, Feeding America, for every Mantis stereo microscope sold from February 6th – March 17th.  

“We couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate our accomplishments than to give back to the community. We chose this charity (Feeding America) because food banks across the United States are experiencing an increased demand for support due to Covid-19. People are struggling to put food on the table. The funds we raise from Mantis sales will help food banks across the U.S. supply meals to those in need. Our goal is to donate enough to provide at least 60,000 meals.” explains Bernie Sherwill, General Manager, Vision Engineering Inc.   

Established in 1958 in Surrey, United Kingdom, Vision Engineering Ltd. began by suppling technologically advanced quality control equipment to the defense and aerospace sectors as well as the expanding electronics industry. From 1960 -1970 Vision Engineering products were exported to the US to support the substantial growth in the electronics and defense markets. Due to the increasing demand for Vision Engineering products in the U.S., in 1973 founder Rob Freeman set up a joint venture with Kulicke & Suffa U.S.A. (known as Vision Systems Inc.) for OEM integration and distribution with an office in Ivyland, PA. In 1974 Vision Systems Inc. became wholly owned by Vision Engineering Ltd. and moved to New York.

In 1981 Vision Engineering Inc. was founded and in 1982 the company moved to New Milford, CT., where they currently are based. Initially the building housed sales, service, tech support and a small scale machine shop, set up by Rob and Robin Gable, who had started as an apprentice in the optical shop at the UK headquarters.

13 years later, in 1994, Vision Engineering revolutionized the microscope industry by introducing Mantis, the first eyepiece-less stereo microscope. Mantis was quickly adopted for assembly and quality control processes worldwide, particularly in the electronics, telecoms and medical device markets. As the demand for Mantis grew it became clear to use the facility in New Milford as the manufacturing site for Mantis, where it is still manufactured today.

Mantis has gone through many technological advances and has won many awards since its launch. It is known throughout the world as the ergonomic solution to stereo microscopes. Similarly, the original New Milford site has grown to include sales and marketing, finance, service and technical support and the original machine shop is now a modern manufacturing facility with a quality lab and clean room for assembly in order to cope with the demand for Mantis, other opto-mechanical assemblies and contract manufacturing projects.

In 2019 Vision Engineering expanded its U.S. presence by opening a West Coast Technology Center in Irvine, CA. This site serves as a support, training and demonstration venue to bring Vision Engineering’s leading edge technologies into the hands of potential tech collaborators and customers.

The company attributes their success to looking at the future and developing new technologies to improve quality in manufacturing, by inspection and measurement.