For nearly 40 years, GCM has been on a journey grounded by unwavering organizational principles. Everyone at GCM strives to conduct him or herself in a highly professional manner by following three core values. We believe that when our values are acted upon in unison, they foster the ultimate customer experiences.
Pursue Excellence: Excellence is a Quality product, delivered on-time, with superior value.
Execute on Commitments: We rely on our Quality management system to effectively execute our commitments and requirements.
Earn Customers’ Trust: Trust is earned when we work as a team to continually improve.
GCM has its roots in two manufacturing companies, Hi-Tech Manufacturing and M & Ko Manufacturing, that each began over 40 years ago. Both companies served critical end markets where a focus on technology and capability drove significant growth. In 2014 the companies joined forces in order to leverage the strong manufacturing backbone of Chicagoland with technology-centric Silicon Valley. Today, united under one brand and company, GCM offers customers a single point of contact service while leveraging manufacturing and value-added engineering solutions across three locations: Chicago, Silicon Valley and Dongguan.
It’s time to go beyond manufacturing… it’s time to Go GCM.
David Ko and Ned Milicevic immigrated from Burma and from Croatia, respectively and worked together at Raychem in Redwood City, CA. Both machinists, they started doing part-time machining at night for Varian Associates and other Silicon Valley companies.
In October 1978, Ned and David quit their day jobs at Raychem and founded M & Ko Manufacturing. The company incorporated on April 6th, 1983, located in 2,500 sq ft on Old County Rd in Belmont, CA.
In September of 1986, the company moved into a 10,000 sq ft facility on Croatian Way in Union City. During this time David and Ned invested heavily into CNC technology and automation as computing power exploded in capability and dropped in cost.
Company revenue grew 7-fold over 11 years and setup the need for another significant expansion.
In December of 1996, the company relocated to the current headquarters at 1350 Atlantic Street. At the time they thought they would never use the entire 70,000 sq ft of facility.
In 1998 an additional 20,000 sq ft was added in a separate building on the site.
In 1999 the company started precision sheet metal operations at the headquarters to service their growing medical and technology customers.
Seamus Meagher joined the company as President in March of 2001.
In May 2001, the company was acquired by Churchill Capital and the name changed to GCM.
Robotic Welding technology was introduced at GCM in 2004.
At the end of December 2006, the original founders of M & Ko together with Seamus Meagher re-acquired the company from Churchill Capital.
In 2007, the company opened a trading company in Kowloon, Hong Kong: Global Contract Manufacturing (HK) Ltd.
In 2012, with the precision sheet metal business rapidly expanding, the company acquired another 52,000 sq ft of manufacturing space at GCM headquarters. This facility has become the center of excellence for precision sheet metal and robotic welding.
In 2014 GCM merged with Hi-Tech Holding LLC based in Chicago, a transaction sponsored by May River Capital.
Hi-Tech Manufacturing was founded by Mario Arcari and Gregory Goldfarb in 1983 and they successfully grew their company over the years in the energy, scientific and medical markets.
In January 2016 GCM Dongguan relocated to 70,000 sq ft campus in Sha Tian Town Dongguan.
In 2017 the company rebranded all sites under the GCM name.
In August of 2019, GCM was acquired by Avista Capital Partners, a health care focused private equity investor.
In July 2021, the GCM Chicago team completed their facility relocation to 1005 Westgate Rd in Addison, Illinois. The new site provides 80,000 sq ft of state-of-the-art manufacturing space.
In January 2023 GCM Dongguan expanded our facility at our main campus to 90,000 sq ft, allowing for additional expansion of metrology and manufacturing equipment.
