Zoltek Mexico facility. Source | Zoltek

Industrial-grade carbon fibers company Zoltek (St. Louis, Miss., U.S.) is celebrating the company’s 50^th anniversary since its founding in July 1975. Zoltek began as a small industrial distributor launched by Zsolt Rumy, a Hungarian-born engineer who came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1957.

Rumy started Zoltek with just $8,000 and a vision to serve the chemical industry, later growing the company into its current position in the carbon fiber industry. His bold pivot into carbon fiber manufacturing in 1988 aided the beginning of the democratization of carbon fiber and laid the foundation for the company’s global success. In 2014, Zoltek was acquired by Toray Group (Tokyo, Japan).

“This anniversary is a celebration of our industrial roots and a recommitment to our future,” says Dave Purcell, CEO of Zoltek. “We’re honoring the legacy of Zsolt with an eye on the next 50 years of innovation together now as part of the Toray Group.”

Zoltek’s facilities in the U.S., Mexico and Hungary produce carbon fiber materials that enable lightweight solutions for wind turbine blades, aircraft, energy storage and a host of other industrial applications. Now with the support of Toray, the company is poised to enable new applications with material innovations for the next 50 years.