Day & Zimmermann is a privately held company in the fields of construction, engineering, staffing and ammunition manufacture, operating out of 150 locations worldwide. Its corporate office is in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Pennsylvania. Day & Zimmermann has an annual revenue of $2.5 billion, and is ranked by Forbes as one of the largest privately held companies in the United States.Day & Zimmermann, data Fiscal Year End, Dec 31, 2014
Accessed 16-05-2017 One of America's leading producers of ammunition, the company operates several government-owned facilities. In the 2011 financial year, it worked on 351 US Army contracts worth 151.8 million dollars.

History

Early years

The company was founded in 1901 by Charles Day and Kern Dodge, son of

James Mapes Dodge James Mapes Dodge (Manhattan, June 30, 1852 – Germantown, Philadelphia, December 4, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer, inventor, industrialist and president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in the year 1903–1904. He is k ...

, as Dodge & Day, specializing in engineering, shop equipment and management. Later, the scope of the organization was enlarged to include a great deal of engineering and construction work in both the industrial and public-service fields.Engineering magazine,
Charles Day
" Engineering magazine. v.39 1910 Apr-Sep. p. 7; Section: The publisher's announcement, Authors and papers for september 1910. In 1907 another former classmate John Zimmermann joined the firm as partner, and they renamed the firm Dodge, Day & Zimmermann. After Kern Dodge withdrew as partner in 1911 the firm became Day & Zimmermann, incorporated in 1916, In its early years the company came into prominence with the design of the construction of the Gatun Lock System, one of the

Panama Canal locks The Panama Canal locks () are a Canal lock, lock system that lifts ships up to the main elevation of the Panama Canal and lowers them down again. The original canal had a total of six steps (three up, three down) for a ship's passage. The tota ...

in 1907. The construction of the Gatun Lock began with the first concrete laid at Gatun, on August 24, 1909, by Day & Zimmermann. In 1914, the company was contracted by the Hershey chocolate company to produce the foil wrapping machines for

Hershey's Kisses Hershey's Kisses are chocolates first produced by the Hershey Company in 1907. The bite-sized pieces of chocolate have a distinctive conical shape, sometimes described as flat-bottomed Drop (liquid), teardrops. Hershey's Kisses chocolates are wra ...

Merger with Yoh Services and later years

In 1961, Day & Zimmermann and Yoh Company merged, with Harold L. Yoh becoming president of Day & Zimmerman. In the early 1970s it assisted in the construction of

Veteran's Stadium Veterans Stadium (full name Veterans Memorial Stadium) is a multi-purpose stadium in New Britain, Connecticut. Opened in 1982, it is dedicated to the soldiers of the city who died in various U.S. wars, particularly Vietnam War, Vietnam. The stad ...

in Philadelphia. In 1976, Spike Yoh bought the company from his father and was the CEO for twenty-two years. He graduated from

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

and one of Duke's facilities is named Duke's Yoh Football Center. In 1998, his son, Hal Yoh, became the company's leader. In that year Day & Zimmermann was the recipient of the National Family Business of the Year award.Bob Brooke, ''The Business Journal'
(1 Jun 1998) Day & Zimmermann's enduring dynasty

Involvement in Israel-Palestine conflict

Day & Zimmermann is responsible for manufacturing much of the artillery munitions used by Israel in its ongoing invasion of Gaza. In particular, it manufactures 155mm rounds, fired by

M109 howitzer The M109 is an American 155 mm turreted self-propelled howitzer, first introduced in the early 1960s to replace the M44 and M52. It has been upgraded a number of times, most recently to the M109A7. The M109 family is the most common Western ...

guns, and 120mm M830A1 High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) rounds, fired by Israel's

Merkava The Merkava (, , "chariot") is a series of main battle tanks used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) which are the backbone of the Armored Corps (Israel), IDF's Armored Corps. Current iterations of this tank are considered broadly equivalent t ...

battle tanks. The

American Friends Service Committee The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Religious Society of Friends ('' Quaker)-founded'' organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world. AFSC was founded in 1917 as a combined effort by ...

says that Merkava tanks fired M830A1 rounds in a November attack on a UN school in Gaza, and in the attack that killed Hind Rajab, and that serial numbers on shells recovered at the scene suggest that the shells were made by Day & Zimmermann subsidiary Mason & Hanger.

Selected publications

* Jeffrey L. Rodengen, Jon VanZile, Sandy Cruz, ''The Legend of Day & Zimmermann,'' 2001. * H. Birchard Taylor, ''Charles Day (1879-1931) Symbol of American Industrial Genius.'' Newcomen Society of North America, 1953. * Harold L. Yoh, ''Day & Zimmermann, Inc: Dedicated to Excellence for Eighty Years, 1901-1981,'' Newcomen Society in North America, 1981.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Day and Zimmermann 1901 establishments in the United States Ammunition manufacturers of the United States Companies based in Philadelphia Defense companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Pennsylvania Manufacturing companies established in 1901 Privately held companies based in Pennsylvania