History

TMS Inc. is a large, well established provider of precision machine tool parts and components, with broad in house capabilities to meet the custom requirements of any type of company which operates or manufactures industrial machinery or which requires precision custom parts of components fabricated from metals or materials.

     The company's continued growth over the years reflects it's ability to respond with quality products and service in the face of rapidly-changing marketplace requirements.

     TMS Inc. was founded as Textile Machine Shop Inc. in 1948 by Romeo Croteau, an experienced machinist. As the name implied, it's primary business was to serve the textile industry. From it's plant in South Bellingham, Mass., Textile Machine Shop quickly developed a reputation of reliability and quality. It's business base began to expand beyond the textile industry, on the assumption that if you can make custom parts for textile machinery, and have the design/engineering skills to service, modify or build textile machines, you can do the same thing for other types of industry.

  Soon, the firm was attracting businesss from diversified fields, and leading national "name" companies such as Uniroyal, St Regis Paper, Fram Corporation, Owens Corning Fiberglass, and General Foods, for which production machines were built.

 This diversification stood the firm in good stead, as the textile industry was beginning it's exodus from the Northeast. It also led to business in the computer industry.   

   Computers in the early 1950's were huge, complex and cumbersome machines which required an awesome variety of machine parts. As computers became more sophisticated, precision machining became more important, and TMS Inc began to invest heavily in high-precision, close-tolerance equipment. This, in turn, permitted the company to expand into serving companies with government contracts, making components for missiles and aircraft, among others.

     In 1960, Romeo Croteau retired. Romeo's son Bernard Croteau continues leadership of it's managment team today, as Chairman. Continuing with the family tradition, Bernard's daughter Linda as Vice President and son Bernard Croteau Jr. as President joined the company in 1990.

     With the advent of printed circuitry, demand for computer parts was reduced drastically, and while TMS Inc continues to serve the computer/electronics industry, making frames and microprocessor parts, the bulk of it's business is now in high-precision, close tolerance area in other industries.