General Info

OMW was founded in the proverbial garage, in 1996 in San Rafael, California. Joe Osborn had recently sold a software company he helped found, and was looking for a way to turn his life-long interest in metalworking and industrial arts into another business. Earlier, he had gone to an industry trade show, and was greatly inspired by the newly emerging PC-based solid modeling CAD and CAM systems, such as Solidworks and SurfCam. It looked like these new pieces of software, in conjunction with the internet and modern cnc machine tools, were going to make possible a highly-efficient new model for a PC-based, software-intensive machine shop. Joe purchased early copies of Solidworks and SurfCam, as well as a small CNC knee mill, and moved them into his garage. The company was originally named Osborn Metal Works, but because other Osborn companies existed, was soon renamed OMW Metalcrafts, using the initials of the original name. Within a year or two, the company moved into shared industrial commercial space near its current location in Novato, California. From the start, OMW had a strong focus on its customers and emerging PC-based manufacturing technology. It started by doing work for local small businesses, but soon attracted larger industrial clients. The company's revenues grew each year, some years nearly doubling, and it soon hired its first employees. From the beginning, OMW attracted people with a high level of computer and software skills, in addition to a superb machining background. In 2003, the company was incorporated and the name changed to OMW Corporation. From one knee mill, OMW grew by 2009 to nearly a dozen state-of-the-art machining and turning centers, with as many computers, and nearly 6, 000 square feet of efficiently utilized industrial space. Besides a strong focus on the satisfaction of its customers, OMW's success has been due in large part to the wonderful, highly skilled people it has been able to attract. In addition to terrific machining talent, all OMW employees share excellent people skills and computer and software aptitude truly important to OMW's success. Their efforts have created one of the most technologically innovative and fastest growing machine shops in the US. We hope you'll visit our Employee Profiles section. Besides manufacturing and machining proficiency, you'll find through OMW's people, resources for part design, manufacturing techniques, cost-reduction, process improvement and many other skills. You'll find OMW people to be easy to work with, respectful of your time, and above all, willing to do whatever it takes to make your next project a success. Mary Heitman, our Office Manager, is no stranger to manufacturing. She ran her own popular bakery in Marin County for many years. Mary also ran a private bookkeeping service, and is an excellent accountant. She is employee #1 at OMW, having joined the company on a consulting basis soon after it was founded, and as a full-time employee not long after. Mary's common-sense approach to solving customer's problems and her general wisdom and good judgment working with others make her a company favorite. Mary graduated from UCLA with a degree in psychology. Carlon Lamont has been working with metal for as long as he can remember- welding, drilling holes and fabricating things since childhood. He spent years in the metal shop in high school, and also built 3 computers with his dad. He is two years into a formal apprenticeship program run by the California Tooling and Machining Apprenticeship Association, and has been certified by NiMS ( the National Institute for Metal Working Skills, Inc ). In addition to machine tools, Carlon is very proficient with PC's and software. He loves CNC programming and an efficient, clean environment. Joe Osborn is OMW's founder. He started metalworking in Junior High building a scale live steam locomotive. In high school, Joe enrolled in metal shop class and also worked as an apprentice Luthier, learning to build