Our Company

Preco, Inc. began as Gramling Tool and Die Company. Founded in 1956 by tool and die maker G.T. (Bill) Gramling, the company supplied dies and fixtures primarily to the gasket industry. From this modest beginning in Bill’s basement, the company grew over the next 20 years to be one of the most successful tool and die companies in the Midwest. Projects included providing dies and fixtures for the largest vending machine manufacturer at the time, special machines such as a spiral handrail tubing bender for government projects, and the first “fibrillator,” machine that turned extruded plastic film into fiber that could be spun. This spun fiber resulted in outdoor carpet, first developed by the Gulf Oil Research Center in 1968. Gramling employees excelled at building machines to keep their customers competitive. They listened to their challenges. They learned about each customer’s unique material handling needs. They developed better methods with their engineering and manufacturing expertise to build the best machines. Over time, Gramling Tool and Die applied the same processes they used to develop machines in their core markets to other industries. This resulted in the development of the first “Preco-style” press/die, specifically designed to run on presses as an integral part of processing for the printing industry. The same philosophy that worked then works today – Preco is successful because we continually expand our knowledge of material processing so that we can build machines to customer needs, not the other way around.