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SMALL HOLES AND TOUGH SST JOBS NO PROBLEM AT VANDERHULST ASSOC. INC.
Hank Vanderhulst, president and CEO of Vanderhulst Associates. Inc.
Hank Vanderhulst senior immigrated from Holland to California’s Silicon Valley prior to it being known by that name. He worked in Stanford’s machine shop before opening a two-man operation with a partner he met on the job at the university. Microprocessors were not yet a thing, so the business grew off the burgeoning local medical industry. “My dad bought out his partner when they only had three machines and opened Vanderhulst Associates in 1972,” tells Hank Vanderhulst junior, president and CEO of Santa Clara, Ca. based Vanderhulst Associates. Inc. “The company has come a long way in 50 years, but our core competency still lies in hard to machine parts for medical equipment manufacturers and suppliers.”
Hank started his career as a child standing on a box drilling parts for his dad, but his sister took another path
before becoming an owner at Vanderhulst Associates Inc. “My sister Sandy Thompson and I purchased the company from our parents twenty years ago when they were set to retire,” explains Hank. “They built a strong, thriving business that we were excited to continue and grow”. Sandy is a CPA and went to Santa Clara university for accounting/business and started managing the finances when our parents were considering retirement. At that point we knew she was going to be here forever like me, it’s the perfect pairing owning the business together. She handles all the office and day to day, and I manage the manufacturing with the help of an awesome staff. Sandy’s daughter and husband both work here, and my wife worked with us for a while. It’s still a family business, and that’s important to us when our name is on the door.”
Medical is their bread and butter at Vanderhulst, with top names in the industry utilizing their abilities to produce parts made from exotic metals with unique features. A leading supplier of mass spectrometers relies on Vanderhulst to produce multiple internal UHV parts as well as key larger components. “Our Makino A71 is dedicated to producing a single part of the mass spectrometer,” details Hank. “Makino makes a great machine, and it takes every bit of its capabilities to produce these Forged 304 stainless parts. The part itself begins as a 162 pound block of 304 and after 22 hours is machined down to only 17lbs. It is an extremely difficult part to machine and is the heart of the mass spectrometer. This part runs nonstop every day.”
The facility itself is jam packed with machining centers of all types. Brands like Ganesh, Kiwa, DMG Mori, Makino, Brother, YCM, and Miyano are tightly spaced in rows and cells. Everything from standard verticals to pallet pool
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The majority of jobs at Vanderhulst don’t run lights out. They have a team of 26 working on 30+ CNC machines shop-wide.
Brands like Ganes
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