The Pneumatic Hydraulic Development Co., Inc. was founded by Harry A. Neff, Jim Neff, Tom Neff, Jack Neff, Dick Futter, and Dan Flickinger. The Tom Thumb®cylinder was developed in a garage in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The company moved from the downtown garage to a large facility near Fort Wayne International Airport.

The company moved from the downtown garage to a large facility near Fort Wayne International Airport.

The company acquired its own machining facility in Huntington, Indiana, to keep quality high and costs reasonable.

The company officially adopted PHD, Inc. as its name.

PHD bought land at Clubridge Drive for expansion and growth. The Technical & Training Center was built and housed administration and light assembly.

With the addition of the Parts Handler, Miniature Rotary Actuators, Hall Effect Switches, Grippers, and the first Ready Slide, PHD became a significant player in the modular automation industry.

190 Grippers, GRB & GRC Grippers, SA Slides, SD & SE Slides, and Escapements were developed.

PHD expanded by establishing PHD GmbH in Germany to support the European market.The new PHD administration building was built on Clubridge Drive in Fort Wayne.

Compact Round Cylinders, RA Rotary Actuators, GRD Grippers, CE Rodless Cylinders, and Emax®products were released.

The manufacturing facilities became ISO-9002 certified.

phdinc.com was established.

The first Designer’s Resource CD was released, providing customers with an electronic catalog, CAD generation, and sizing software.

The administration building saw renovation and the Huntington facility constructed a 40,000 square foot addition.

The Clamp Division was established to focus on the automotive stamping automation market.

PHD built a state-of-the-art 85,000 square foot manufacturing facility on Clubridge Drive. The move from the original plant took place over a weekend and production went uninterrupted.

PHD committed to an alignment with the MAC Distributor Network (MDN). A distributor support website was launched for checking order status.

The new online CAD Configurator with solid models and over 80 CAD formats became available.

The Plastic Packaging Components Group was launched and PHD added Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for automatic order entry providing increased order processing speed.

PHD acquired Rankin Corporation which holds the master distribution rights for Yamaha Robotics in North America.

PHD unveiled the Learn website, dedicated to product knowledge, application designs, and guided tours of eTools.

The PHD Plus™ (electromechanical) product line was released as well as the Your Motor, Your Way process.