Charles Gougler started the manufacturing firm in his Rockwell Street garage in 1921. At its height during World War II, when Gougler’s 10 plants were heavily involved in wartime manufacturing, the company was Kent’s largest employer with nearly 1,500 employees.
Gougler has gone through a lot of changes even since the early 1990s, when Furukawa Co. purchased Gougler Industries so the Japanese firm could have a manufacturing arm in the United States. At that time Gougler employed about 225 people. It had employed about 500 a decade earlier.
“We had an inspection department, we had a grinding, we had rows of lathes, rows of drill presses,” Crane recalled. “They got out of all that. It’s just too costly to compete.”
Furukawa decided to keep the company competitive by making it a sales subsidiary focusing on two divisions: rock drills and breaker attachments, he said.
By the time Gougler Industries officially changed its name to Furukawa Rock Drill USA in 2006, the company employed 60 at its Lake Street location. Crane said the company employs about 45 today, a number he said will not change after the demolition work, which is set to begin early this year.
