Parent company of Fort Collins-based Wolf Robotics sold to Ohio firm

FORT COLLINS — Wolf Robotics, a Fort Collins-based manufacturer of integrated robotic welding and cutting systems, has a new parent company.

Euclid, Ohio-based welding equipment maker Lincoln Electric Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: LECO) acquired privately held Rimrock Holdings Corp., based in Columbus, Ohio. Wolf Robotics is one of Rimrock Holdings’ two divisions; the other is Rimrock Corp. in Columbus, which makes automated spray systems and robotics for die-casting, foundry and forging operations.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Messages left at Wolf Robotics for president and CEO Doug Rhoda, operations manager Darren Pape and engineering manager Lance Guymon were not returned Wednesday.

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“Our investment in Wolf Robotics extends our leadership position in automated welding and cutting,” said Christopher L. Mapes, chairman, president and chief executive of Lincoln Electric, in a media statement. “We are excited to combine their expertise and capabilities as a leading automation integrator in the North American heavy fabrication sector with our existing portfolio to better serve customers and accelerate growth.”

Rimrock had purchased Wolf Robotics, 4600 Innovation Drive, from a European conglomerate in 2003.

Wolf Robotics traces its industrial lineage to Heath Farm Equipment, a company that was started in Fort Collins in 1944 by Robert Heath, a mining engineer who moved to the city that year from Alaska. John Mattingly, who would later help to start Water Pik, invested in the company in 1948. Heath Farm Equipment soon developed a flame tool to cut metal parts, an event that led the company down the path to robotics.

The farm equipment side of the company eventually was sold in 1962 and Heath Farm Equipment became Heath Engineering, focusing on the development of industrial tools.

In 1976 the Swedish company ESAB invested in Heath, then bought out the business in 1978. ESAB Automation eventually moved from a longtime facility near the Fort Collins Downtown Airpark to Innovation Drive in 1991. The next year, ABB, a joint venture between Sweden’s ASEA and Switzerland’s Brown Boveri, bought ESAB’s robotic welding business.