Thanks for Coming! Open House July 2018

In July, we hosted an open house for our friends, families and the community to come in on a regular working day and see what we do on a daily basis. This is the first time HPI has ever opened its doors for people to come in. We weren’t sure what to expect or if anyone would even be interested in seeing what we do everyday. The doors were set to open at 11am and at 10:45 there was a line outside of people waiting to get in! Over 400 people came through the doors and toured our facility making our open house a huge success. Local food vendors, Noble Barbeque and C&J Shaved Ice, were on site serving people good food and refreshing treats throughout the day. 

Throughout the tour, visitors got to walk the shop floor and see our many CNC machines working on current projects in the shop. In the sand room, visitors were some of the first people to see our brand new 3rd in house 3D sand printer! They got to extract their own keychain molds, clean the excess loose sand out of them just like a sand room employee would do and then take them to a pouring station where an HPI employee assisted them with pouring molten metal into the clean mold. Once the casting cooled down, visitors got to break open the molds and pull out their casting. Although HPI doesn’t do any pouring in our facility on a regular basis, visitors got a glimpse of what happens after our products leave our facility and go to a foundry. The keychain pouring station was one of the most popular parts of the day!

In the quality room, visitors were able to see the laser scanner working in real time. Apprentice Patternmaker Kyle Rittmeyer was operating the laser all day scanning the hands of visitors showing them the process of how the scanner works and explaining the uses for it. Scanning hands on top of a basketball helped show the detail that our laser can pick up. 

Friends and families of HPI employees had the opportunity to come in and see where their loved ones spend 40 (sometimes more!) hours a week. Our family members are a part of our extended HPI family and it was exciting to share with them what we do every day and how we do it. 

Above: Hadley (daughter of our CAD supervisor, Nate Chavarria) got to come in and see what her dad does at work!

Above: Haydenne (daughter of office staff Kristen Hake) came in to see mom’s desk!

Going into this open house and not knowing what the response was going to be was exciting and scary at the same time. We cannot thank the community enough for taking an interest in what we do here at HPI and supporting us as employees and as friends. If you missed this open house, don’t worry! We are already planning another one and can’t wait to see you here.