What was Lewis & Saunders and then became Smith Tubular Systems is now Titeflex Aerospace

LACONIA — Smiths Tubular Systems, Inc., which employs 268 people at its manufacturing facility at the O'Shea Industrial Park, has acquired a new identity as Titeflex Aerospace, a subsidiary of Smiths Group plc, headquartered in London.

The change of name signals the integration of the Laconia operation with Titeflex Europe SAS of Ozoir la Ferriere, France and STS Titeflex India Pvt. Ltd of Bangalore, all three of which provide fluid management solutions to the aerospace industry. A fourth component, Titeflex Corporation of Springfield, Massachusetts, serves industrial and transportation market.

The four divisions of the Titeflex Corporation produce a variety of PTFE, best known as teflon, and metal hoses with diverse applications in a wide range of industries.

In pursuit of closely aligning the four companies, the Titeflex brand has been revived, the sales force expanded and facilities upgraded. The firm is seeking a marketing coordinator for its Laconia facility.

"Many of our customers are globalizing their businesses and are looking for their suppliers to do the same," said Mitch Rogers, managing director of sales, in a prepared statement. "Titeflex has always been a worldwide leader in fluid management solutions, and these initiatives will allow us to meet our customers' evolving needs." The firm counts Boeing, Airbus, Pratt and Whitney, GE and Rolls Royce among its customers.

The Smiths Group traces its roots to Baltimore, where in 1913 Joseph E. Lewis began manufacturing tubes and coils. Some twenty years Lewis partnered with William W. Saunders to form a corporation, the Joseph E. Lewis & Company, Inc. With World War II the firm began producing tubular parts for gun mounts, cooper coils for refrigeration units, components for torpedoes and parts for the engines that powered the Boeing B-29 Superfortress.

In 1954, the company opened a branch in Laconia called Lewis & Saunders, which produced primarily copper coils. Soon afterwards, the Baltimore plant shut down. In 1983 Lews & Saunders moved to its current facility with 85,000 square feet of space.

In 1988, both Lewis & Saunders and the Titeflex Corporation were acquired by the TI Group plc, an international engineering consortium, which three years later merged with Smiths Industries, the forerunner of the Smiths Group plc. Titeflex Corporation and Lewis & Saunders merged in 2005 to become Smiths Tubular Systems — Laconia, Inc., a supplier of aerospace components. Since then the company has expanded its product line to provide complete fluid transfer systems in flexible, rigid or hybrid assemblies for carrying fuel, lubricants, hydraulic fluid, gases or air in engines for aircraft, missiles and space vehicles.