In 1985, Giacomo Antonini and Martin Nobs were working for a U.S. sale distributor that was representing Tripet AG, a Swiss manufacturer of grinding machines. Mr. Antonini proposed to the owner of Tripet that a new company, Usach, take over the representation of Tripet in the U.S. (The name Usach was based on USA for United States of America and CH for Switzerland.) The proposal was accepted and Usach Technologies, Inc. was established later that year by Giacomo and Bere Antonini.
On January 1, 1986, Usach began business as the U.S. sales and service distributor of Tripet, Hauser and Tschudin (HTT) grinding machines. The original company had 3½ employees: Giacomo, Martin, a service engineer, and a half-time employee, Bere. By 1988, a 3,000 sq. ft. facility was being rented and Usach had six employees. Two years later, Usach purchased a 7,000 sq.ft. facility in Elgin, Illinois. By the end of 1993, the company had added 3,000 sq. ft. to its facility, employed 20 people, and had begun to engineer and assemble customer solutions for HTT machines.
In 2005, Usach purchased a 30,000 square feet building in Elgin since it employed 35 people and was maturing into a full-fledged machine tool builder. It continued to develop its core competences to include: design, engineering, software, and assembly of ID and OD grinding machines, and its customers included a number of well-known manufacturing companies in North America. Today, Usach still resides in Elgin, but has expanded to a state-of-the-art 45,000 sq. ft. facility with over 50 employees.
Usach officially became a member of the Hardinge Group in December of 2012 and is now leading the charge of the Silicon Carbide machine industry.