The company was founded in 1951 by Bill Moog, Art Moog, and Lou Geyer. The company is headquartered in East Aurora, New York, a suburb of Buffalo, New York and has sales, engineering, and manufacturing facilities in twenty-six countries around the world.
Moog now trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbols: MOG.A and MOG.B
In July 1951 Bill Moog, Art Moog and Lou Geyer raised $3,000 to open "Moog Valve". The U.S. government was eager to buy valves that could improve its guided missile system. Bendix placed the company's first order for four valves. A Philco subcontractor ordered seventy-five more before the first four were finished and by the end of the first year, gross sales reached $200,000 and the company had produced over 500 valves. Moog quickly became known in the guided missile field, and within a short time the company received its first aircraft order. By 1955, the company was supplying Douglas Aircraft, North American Aviation, Convair and Boeing. Gross sales had grown over $2,000,000 and its valves were being used on rudder controls for the Navy's jet fighters.
Moog had to start manufacturing their own parts because the company's missile and aircraft backlog was growing too fast. But, Bill Moog knew that development into the industrial market was critical to diversify the company's technology and to reduce its dependence on government spending. Wiesner-Rapp was the first customer to use Moog's industrial valves on an automatic tool.
By 1959, total sales had grown to over $10 million and employees numbered just shy of 700. Every U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile, including Atlas, Titan, Jupiter were guided by Moog's controls. The company's valves were also being used on Convair's F-106 and McDonnell's F-4 Phantom fighter. In less than ten years, the company's ever-growing team had become the undisputed leaders in the field of electrohydraulic servocontrols.
The company also gained a leadership role in liquid secondary injection controls, and began to manufacture mechanical feedback actuators. At the same time, Moog developed its Hydra-Point numerical control machining centers. At this time, Art Moog and Lou Geyer took the opportunity to retire from the company when it had revenues of more than $23 million and employees numbering 1,300.
In the 1970s the company planted Moog facilities in Japan, France, Italy, Sweden, Brazil and Australia. The military and aerospace business grew quickly. Fuelled by the F-15 Eagle, Trident missiles, and preliminary work on the Space Shuttle, the company's U.S. revenues were again dominated by defense spending. Moog also acquired Carleton Controls, a company that produced precision pneumatic pressure and flow control components used in space vehicles, aircraft, submarines and guided missiles.
Overseas, Moog continued its expansion, doubling the sizes of its existing facilities and opening new operations in Ireland, Spain, the Philippines, Korea, India, Finland and Hong Kong.
Within the next ten-year span, their sales grew from $135 million in 1980 to $282 million in 1989. Despite this, the company suffered a significant financial setback in 1988. Cost estimates on a number of fixed price contracts for developing new technologies grew dramatically during the course of the year while at the same time, transitions from the programs' development phases to profitable production status were delayed. The combination caused the company to report a loss of nearly $14 million.
In the same year, Bill Moog went into semi-retirement at the age of 72, turning in his stock to the company in exchange for Moog's Industrial Controls Division (ICD). Leadership of Moog Inc. passed to Bob Brady, president of the company's Aerospace Group who had begun working with Moog in the 1960s. Bob Brady formed a new team that guided the company through the difficult last two years of the 1980s and into the 1990s, manoeuvering through changes that swallowed other aerospace and industrial corporations along the way.
Beginning the 1990s with sales just over $300 million, the company was faced with an uncertain U.S. defense budget and along with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the certainty of a recession overseas. It took two years for the full effect of these circumstances to impact the companies earnings. In 1992, the U.S. Congress decreased production on the B-2 and terminated production of the various other programs. As a result of these conditions, they suffered a 24% reduction in work force, and a 19% reduction in facilities, reporting a loss of nearly $7 million.
Even though the company was going through a difficult financial situation, they acquired AlliedSignals' actuation systems for $78 million and it proved successful. Two years later, its addition gave the company the resources to repatriate Moog Controls Inc., the formed Industrial Division, spun off in 1988. Schaeffer Magnetics, Montek, Schenck Pegasus, and PerkinElmer (Wright Components), all in the U.S., came to be part of the corporation. Overseas, Ultra, Hydrolux, Microset, Vickers Electrics, Bosch Radial Pumps, Whitton and FCS Control Systems, all from Europe, became part of the Moog family in the 1990s and early 2000s. New subsidiaries in Singapore and China increased the company's Pacific Rim presence.
Technology gained from these acquisitions included mechanical actuation through planetary gear trains for the maneuvering leading edges on aircraft. In the Industrial segment, Moog gained manifold technology, turbine controls, radial piston pumps and high voltage electric motion controls. In Space, it acquired antenna and solar array pointing mechanisms. These new capabilities gave the company access to a number of different markets.
The USAF F/A-18E/F's flight controls were made by Moog. Also during this time, Moog provided hardware for the launch vehicles as well as for the steering controls on the satellites themselves. In addition, regulators for Hughes' electric propulsion feed systems went into production. Moog Controls returned and provided earnings growth and emphasis on controls for industrial gas turbines, training simulators and testing machines.
By the end of the decade, Moog had posted five straight years of double-digit earnings growth and had more than doubled its annual revenues to $630 million.
Moog is currently working on several large development programs including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Indian Light Combat Aircraft, Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Airbus A400M, A380 and the X-47 unmanned aerial vehicle. The company's military production programs include the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, F-15 Eagle, V-22 Osprey and F35 The commercial production programs include the full line of Boeing 7-series of aircraft.The latest addition to the list of major programs is the Airbus A350XWB.
Moog has worked on:
Moog has supplied assistance on the following:
Medical Devices is Moog's newest segment, formed as a result of the acquisition of Curlin Medical, McKinley Medical, and Zevex International in 2006. Moog's primary products are electronic ambulatory infusion pumps and ambulatory enteral feeding pumps along with the necessary administration sets as well as disposable infusion pumps. Applications of these products include controlled delivery of fluids to the body, nutrition, post-operative pain management, regional anesthesia, chemotherapy and antibiotics.