Link IconCopy linkFacebook LogoShare on FacebookXShare on XEmailShare via EmailLink copied to clipboardThe family owner of Kulpsville plastics maker hopes a big racing deal boosts its repMontgomery County manufacturer Greene Tweed a family-owned military and industrial supplier since 1863 seeks to up its profile with a Formula One racing deal A family-owned Montgomery County manufacturer that’s been supplying hardware parts and seals for U.S military vehicles and others since the Civil War hopes to raise its public profile as a new sponsor of U.K.-based sports carmaker McLaren’s pro auto racing teams which employs 2,000 at its Kulpsville factory and labs has inked a multiyear deal to support McLaren’s Formula One and Arrow McLaren IndyCar teams Greene Tweed’s blue logo will go on McLaren race cars and its engineers will work with the race teams “exploring design and delivery of high-performance and resilient materials,” the companies said Thursday Greene Tweed has been a McLaren supplier for the past four years “we engineer the toughest parts — thermoplastics composites“ for missions that “can’t fail,” said Allon Bloch That company’s expertise “strongly aligns” with McLaren’s need for high performance and steady Other users of Greene Tweed parts have included NASA The company competes against — and also sometimes supplies — units of larger diversified multinationals including DuPont Co of Wilmington and TE Connectivity of Berwyn Products include Xycomp light composites for aircraft Orthotek carbon composites for X-ray markers and other medical uses Formula One’s audience has more than doubled to over a million viewers per race since 2016, when it was purchased from private-equity investors by billionaire John C. Malone’s Liberty Media, the company that also controls West Chester-based QVC the people they want to deal with will be seeing their name featuring specialized cars that can cost millions to build McLaren also makes street-ready sports cars with prices starting at over $200,000 The local dealer is on West Chester Pike in Chester County Greene Tweed was founded in 1863 in New York braided packings” and a line of industrial seals to keep high-pressure gases in engines The company moved operations to Montgomery County after 1900 to be close to an asbestos supplier in North Wales an Austrian who had developed a silk factory and a department store in Paris but emigrated to New York when the Nazis invaded “In the 1960s we got a call from the Air Force that our seals would be excellent for jet landing gear,” Bloch said but there’s too much risk.’ The Air Force said ‘We’re not asking.’” Landing gear became a major product More recently the company diversified into high-temperature polyetherketone materials and developed lines of fluorinated plastics that can be built in complex shapes that hold their forms at extreme temperatures by his uncles when they began planning for retirement at Brown Brothers Harriman’s Philadelphia office This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Link IconCopy linkFacebook LogoShare on FacebookXShare on XEmailShare via EmailLink copied to clipboardBuilding boom resumes in TowamencinFrom the curved pedestrian bridge Towamencin Township built over the crossroads village of Kulpsville you can see the next suburban boomtown rising From the curved pedestrian bridge Towamencin Township built over the crossroads village of Kulpsville against a backdrop of the behind-schedule Pennsylvania Turnpike widening at the nearby Lansdale exit you can watch crews build the four-story Bridgeview apartment complex which will start renting next month; the thick concrete core of a six-story Courtyard by Marriott hotel and the Culinary Arts Institute of Montgomery County Community College which will enroll its first students in the spring Farther north stands ball-bearing maker SKF Corp.'s U.S and corporate headquarters all are the work of Nicoletti's Philadelphia Suburban Development Corp. better known in the city as a major landlord of parole and welfare offices and other state agencies as well as a South Philly site proposed by Penn National Corp "We're not nowhere - we're 10 minutes from Plymouth Meeting" and highways east who runs the daily business operations with his brother-in-law Joseph Ferrier and a staff that includes four of Robert's 11 grandchildren "When you take a look at what they're pulling together up there - the college the corporate side - it's one of the biggest developments around Philadelphia," said Scott Fainor president and chief executive of National Penn Bank the largest bank based in Eastern Pennsylvania and a lender to Nicoletti projects The turnpike ties the area to both the Lehigh Valley and greater Philadelphia - which is why SKF followed Merck who picked Towamencin over Valley Forge and Bethlehem "I'd compare what's happening up there to what's happening over at Great Valley," where the state is adding turnpike ramps and attracting new commercial construction after the long slump the area's former state senator and now head of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce "What they're trying to do up there is very much in tune with the future of suburban development," mixing offices chief executive of office landlord Brandywine Realty Trust functionally segregated centers like King of Prussia and Cherry Hill which are now trying to regroup as "mixed-use communities." When Robert Nicoletti bought his first six Towamencin acres in 1958 his day job was selling rowhouses in Northeast Philly recalls the family companies in the area that shipped through Reading Railroad's Philadelphia terminal: Moyer beef There was an independent national bank and insurer in Harleysville and once-cautious builders that inflated in the single-family-housing boom "Almost none of those businesses have stayed as family businesses one of the few to make the switch from local supplier to international markets As the old German and Mennonite families sold their land Towamencin officials knew growth was coming but they "didn't want to be like Montgomeryville or Quakertown," with stop-and-go highways lined by big-box and fast-food stores "Nicoletti had the critical piece of land," an eventual 60 acres When son Mark started at Villanova in 1982 his father got a Days Inn franchise and put him to work on the desk after classes their company bought 40 adjoining acres from a developer wiped out in the savings-and-loan crisis and later added a six-acre lot that once housed the police station They spent much of the 2000s fighting township plans for a new road to move local traffic off Sumneytown Pike and Forty Foot Road and preserve them as commuter and truck highways they faced a "no Nicoletti" campaign by Philadelphia union members threatened by their practice of hiring nonunion contractors that didn't pay into industry pension and retirement funds That kept the Nicolettis off big federal public-housing rehab contracts We moved to a prevailing-wage model," using union masons and ironworkers but also nonunion electricians and carpenters and paid union-scale wages without the benefit plans The Towamencin logjam ended about the time the national economy stalled in 2008 leaving towns and builders eager to get projects moving "We don't get these things done without a lot of arm-wrestling That always happens between towns and developers But it's worked out to the benefit of the township," said Republican State Sen Mark Nicoletti said his family isn't done there he's joined an effort to lure contract-research firms to the Towamencin area seeking another growth industry to keep crews busy and validate his father's vision: That a field by a highway is a good thing to own Please select what you would like included for printing: Copy the text below and then paste that into your favorite email application This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply Service map data © OpenStreetMap contributors According to The Reporter Online, Towamencin Township Supervisors Chairman Dan Littley said supervisors expect the PTC to agree with the request and revert the name back to Kulpsville as it was up until the late 1970s Littley was quoted in The Reporter as such: “Too many officials come to this community and welcome everyone to Lansdale At the June 20 Lansdale Borough Council meeting councilman Jack Hansen proposed a vote for the borough to lobby Harrisburg to prevent the name change Council then voted unanimously to do just that People know where Lansdale is because they see it on the map with the interchange of the turnpike," Hansen said "I move that borough council and the borough manager lobby our representatives in Harrisburg to maintain the name of Lansdale." The motion was seconded by councilman Dan Dunigan Council President Matt West liked the idea proposed by Hansen Littley said he had no comment until he sees Lansdale's resolution Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts. Link IconCopy linkFacebook LogoShare on FacebookXShare on XEmailShare via EmailLink copied to clipboardLansdale mother charged with child endangermentA Lansdale mother of three was arrested and charged with child endangerment Sunday after two of her children wandered into a Kulpsville restaurant cold A Lansdale mother of three was arrested and charged with child endangerment Sunday after two of her children the woman allegedly was involved in a hit-and-run accident in Lansdale She was held in the Montgomery County prison on DUI and other charges reported the two lost children to Towamencin Township police about noon Sunday The youngsters were not accompanied by any adults and lacked proper clothing for the weather - 25 degrees with a wind-chill factor of 12 "The children stated they were there because they were cold and needed a drink," Dickinson said police found that the youngsters lived in the 1500 block of Dean Drive The children said they had not seen their mother since earlier in the morning and had not eaten lunch or dinner the day before Officers went to the children's home and found the front door ajar a woman police identified as Christina Marie Fitzwater Dickinson said Fitzwater told police she had not seen the children since 9:40 a.m She said she had left them in the care of another child After learning that the 12-year-old had left home the night before on a trip and possession of a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia Fitzwater was arraigned before District Judge Maurice H Fitzwater also faces charges of leaving the scene of an accident and motor vehicle violations The children were placed with a relative by Montgomery County Children and Youth Services