Rhode Island is losing another one.
Friends Foundry Inc. in Woonsocket, VIBCO Inc.’s casting partner since 1974, announced it will cease operations on Jan. 31. The retirement notice, simple and humble, marks the end of nearly 60 years of hard, gritty, indispensable work.
For most people, this is just another small-business closure.
For me, and for anyone who understands what it takes to keep manufacturing alive in this state, it’s something much heavier.
We’re not just losing a vendor who supplied us with castings for decades – we’re losing another piece of Rhode Island’s industrial soul.
VIBCO was founded in October 1962. Since moving to Rhode Island in 1974, we’ve relied on companies such as Friends Foundry. Firms built by men and women who poured everything they had into their work. Not metaphorically – literally.
These weren’t cushy jobs. These were hard, gritty, brilliant places run by people who worked six or seven days a week, often taking no paycheck so their employees could. They didn’t need fitness trackers, peptides, longevity hacks or Instagram coaches. Their life was the workout, lifting, bending, welding, grinding, solving problems and chasing quality because their name was cast into the metal.
Here’s the remarkable part: so many of these founders and shop owners were still doing this into their 80s and 90s, with some nearly 100 years old. Almost-centenarians remained on the shop floor, still checking castings, still making decisions and still keeping promises. While the modern world chases “anti-aging” shortcuts, these men and women simply outworked aging itself. They stayed strong because they stayed useful. Their longevity wasn’t bought; it was earned.
We’re watching the last members of that generation close their doors, one by one. No matter how prepared we think we are, losing them feels like losing the structural beams of Rhode Island’s manufacturing heritage.
This year alone, nearly a dozen long-term VIBCO suppliers have shut down operations. Not because they lacked customers or lacked skill. It was because the people who built and ran these companies for 50, 60, 70 years finally reached the end of their run, with no one standing behind them to carry it on.
These weren’t just shops.
They were generational commitments.
They were quiet anchors in communities.
They were the places you could call at 6 a.m., knowing someone would pick up.
Without them, we lose far more than parts on a bill of materials. We lose capability, local resilience, tribal knowledge, trust-based relationships built over decades and a way of working that can’t be taught in a classroom or replaced with automation.
With Friends Foundry closing, we lose the kind of partnership that forms only through years of mutual respect, the kind where problems get solved with a handshake and quality is personal.
We celebrate manufacturing during awards dinners and economic development briefings. However, the truth on the ground is more sobering. We are not producing enough new doers to replace the giants we’re losing.
Tariffs, workforce shortages, material volatility and cost pressures all play a part. However, at the core is something deeper. Running a foundry, machine shop, plating house or fabrication business today is a high-risk, regulation-heavy, capital-intensive leap. Young people aren’t shying away because they lack ability. They’re shying away because the path is unclear, under-supported and barely visible.
Meanwhile, our almost-centenarian founders kept showing up, nearly to the day they couldn’t anymore.
When they go, the knowledge goes with them. And if Rhode Island doesn’t take this seriously, we will wake up one day and realize the supply chain we once bragged about has evaporated.
Who will be our next doers?
That’s the question we have to face.
Not the next “innovators.”
Not the “influencers.”
The next doers.
The people who get up before dawn, fix what’s broken, cut steel, pour metal, machine to microns, solve problems nobody else sees, keep their word and build things that actually make the world run.
These people are disappearing, and we are not replacing them fast enough.
Here's what Rhode Island needs:
n Succession pathways that make it financially viable to take over legacy shops.
n Skills programs that actually lead to careers, not just certificates.
n Financing mechanisms for young entrepreneurs who want to buy and modernize proven companies.
A cultural shift that celebrates the dignity of work, not just the glamour of tech.
Because without these doers, nothing else in the economy moves. To the Vadenais family, thank you.
To Normand Sr., whose obituary tells the story of a Greatest Generation man who lived purpose-first, thank you.
To every founder who has given decades of sweat, sacrifice and stubborn determination to keep Rhode Island manufacturing alive, thank you.
You didn’t rust out.
You didn’t walk away when things got hard.
You simply reached the end of a long journey, and the fact that so many of you carried these companies into your 90s says everything anyone needs to know about your character.
When you turn off the lights one last time, it’ll be quiet.
But the echo of your work will ring across this state for decades.
Karl Wadensten is a member of the R.I. Commerce Corp. board and president of VIBCO Inc., a manufacturing company based in Richmond. He has spent more than 25 years helping build and retain jobs in Rhode Island’s small and mid-sized business sector.
