Pat Bussie, vice president of business development at Fairbanks Morse Defense, stands by an engine the company uses for training excises at the training center in Beloit. New employees, US Navy and Coast Guard personnel all use this facility to train and learn.

Pat Bussie, Vice president of Business Development at Fairbanks Morse Defense, stands next to one of the larger engines the company manufactures. The engine shown here is used for training purposes. The company is celebrating its 150th anniversary in Beloit.

Pat Bussie, vice president of business development at Fairbanks Morse Defense, stands by an engine the company uses for training excises at the training center in Beloit. New employees, US Navy and Coast Guard personnel all use this facility to train and learn.

Pat Bussie, Vice president of Business Development at Fairbanks Morse Defense, stands next to one of the larger engines the company manufactures. The engine shown here is used for training purposes. The company is celebrating its 150th anniversary in Beloit.

BELOIT—Fairbanks Morse Defense is celebrating 150 years of working with the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, as well as the Beloit community this month.

Also, the Fairbanks Morse Quarter Century Club, made up of employees who have put in at least 25 years with the company, is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

“We are celebrating our company’s anniversary throughout August, for a few reasons.” noted Pat Bussie, FMD vice president of business development. “We have documentation that Charles Hosmer Morse did business in Beloit in 1872, but an exact date was not documented.”

Friday the celebration will kick off as Fairbanks employees and family will be treated to a Beloit Sky Carp baseball game. The City of Beloit will present a proclamation recognizing the 150 year anniversary and George Whittier, CEO of FMD, will be throwing the first pitch at the game.

FMD is also sponsoring a post-game fireworks show. There will be two rounds of fireworks on display.

An open house will take place at the FMD office on Saturday morning for employees and their families. The 100th anniversary celebration of the Quarter Century Club will take place that afternoon.

The FMD administrative office is at 655 3rd St., Suite 301 in downtown Beloit. This office opened on Aug. 21, 2021. The company’s administration services were moved to the building.

In the last few months, FMD celebrated the christening of the USS Beloit. The USS Beloit, (LCS 29) is a Freedom-class littoral combat ship. FMD built the engine for this ship that was named after the community that the company has called home for a century and a half.

There have been many changes to the business as a whole in recent years.

In the last two years, the company acquired nine companies that offer a variety of services and work on different aspects of a ship. This journey began in 2020, during the pandemic, shortly after the company became private.

In 2021, the company changed its name to Fairbanks Morse Defense, to demonstrate the focus with the US armed forces and new opportunities they can provide.

“Before the summer of 2020, as a company, we could only provide engines. Now, 29, months later, we offer a lot more to the customer,” Bussie noted. “We still do all the machining and manufacturing of the engines here in Beloit, and are able to offer the new services through the acquisitions.”

The most recent acquisition was Research Tool & Die in Los Angeles, California. This allows FMD to provide electrical mounts and hardware.

“Shipyards look for third parties to provide the mounts so they can just attach them to the ship and now we can provide that service,” Bussie said.

The company also can now offer naval valves, water filtration services, electric elevators for aircraft carriers and much more.

FMD also recently partnered with other companies to expand their reach and better help their customers.

In June of this year, FMD partnered with The IDEAL Electric Company as their naval service provider. This means going forward the company can service both IDEAL equipment as well as FMD engines.

The company’s employment has risen to over 1,200 globally from the 400 employees in two years.

“We train our employees, Navy and Coast Guard personnel here in Beloit and at other facilities,” Bussie noted. “Just on Tuesday we had a groundbreaking at Chesapeake, Virginia for a training facility.”

FMD manufactures the largest diesel engines available in North or South America.

“We produce about 20 engines every year out of Beloit,” Bussie noted. “We order the raw material, but do all the machine work and manufacturing right here in Beloit.”

The employees are trained to be able to run almost all the equipment in case of emergencies and to be able to adapt.

Steps that use to take 30 to 40 people to complete now have become more streamlined and only a few employees are needed. Instead of letting employees go, they get reassigned and trained to work in other areas.

The company started out small and grew into the massive organization it is today.

“People might not know this, but we didn’t begin as a company by making engines,” Bussie noted.

Thaddeus Fairbanks invented the first platform balance scale in the 1830s. Fairbanks later went into business with Charles Hosmer Morse and Eclipse Windmill in the 1850s.

The company looked to expand its services and shifted focus to engines.

It wasn’t until 1893 that the company shipped its first gasoline engine in the United States.

The company’s early days began with working on engines for locomotives, ships and even go karts.

When both world wars hit, the company was hard at work providing engines for the U.S. military.

“In World War II we had 365 engines go out a year, at least one per day,” Bussie noted. “The only day off we were given was on Christmas, but no one took it. The community and the company came together to do their part.”

Today FMD has engines in approximately 80% of all U.S. Navy ships and has service locations along both the East and West coasts of the continental United States.

A celebration of the May 7 christening of the USS Beloit will be held at ABC Supply Stadium in Beloit on Sept. 7.

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

Get our newsletters delivered right to your inbox.

Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in.

Check your email for details.

Invalid password or account does not exist

Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password.

An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the e-mail address listed on your account.

Your purchase was successful, and you are now logged in.

A receipt was sent to your email.