Burkard Industry, Inc. History Established in 1934 by John Adam Burkard carving caskets in his garage. In 1937, the business moved into a factory location and expanded into die casting of casket hardware. Manufacturing of zinc die castings for marine, automotive, recreational vehicle, and commercial hardware industries soon followed. The current facility, which is the third location, was built in 1967 at a size of 21,000 sq feet. Chrome plating, which Burkard operated out of a separate facility during the 1970s, followed as a finishing methods for our zinc die castings. In 1988, Burkard Industries installed the first powder coating line to meet the finishing demands of our zinc die casting customers. Powder coating soon became the finishing method of choice, due to negative growth and environmental concerns of chrome plating. Burkard phased out its chrome plating operations around 1990. To meet increasing demand of the powder coating customers, the building size was doubled to 40,000 square feet and a second conveyorized powder system was installed in 1995. The zinc die casting business was sold to make more room for the growing powder coat operations. In 2003 the building size doubled again to 78,000 square feet. A new state-of-the-art E-Coat system launched June 2, 2003.