Thomas G. Faria Sr.

The Faria Corporation was built on three ingredients - ability, determination and sacrifice.

It is a privately owned company that until the mid 1980's was divided into three corporations:

 

These three corporations have been consolidated and all three operations are now conducted by the Thomas G. Faria Corporation.

We also have two business activities - Faria Marine Instruments and Faria Performance Instruments, that operate within the corporation. These two groups sell to the aftermarket in the marine and automotive industries. The rest of the company's sales are to OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers).

Thomas G. Faria known as Tom to his friends and employees, was born December 19, 1926, in New London, Connecticut. His father was a commercial fisherman. Both parents were naturalized United States Citizens who emigrated here form Madeira, Portugal.

As a boy, Tom went to New London Schools. His hobbies were radio, chemistry and building all types of mechanical things in his father's workshop.

In 1944, Tom started his own radio business, which was named "Tommy's Radio Shop", and ran it for 1 year.

In 1945, Tom went one term to M.I.T. and then was drafted. After being discharged, He attended New London Junior College under the GI Bill for one term, and 2 years to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He went there strictly as a special student, taking only engineering courses. He took straight Mechanical Engineering, with all his options in Industrial Engineering. He finished his studies in June of 1950 and went to work for New Departure in Bristol, Connecticut as a time-study engineer.

In 1951, He became a Production Engineer at Nems Clark, Silver Springs, Maryland, doing production planning scheduling, industrial engineering, and design work in producing government electronic equipment. During this time, he stared the Thomas G. Faria Corporation part time, getting small Government contracts for electronic parts.

In 1954, He obtained his E.I.T. Certificate in the District of Columbia and also went full time into the Faria Corporation. Because he was not getting repeat Government business, he started to look for a standard product to build and decided it ought to be an electrical product for the Automotive Industry. Looking at the Sears Catalog, he saw an electrical tachometer and decided to begin building them.

Tom moved back to New London and went to work for the New London Instrument Company as an assistant Sales Manager. 1956, he went to work at Electric Boat division of General Dynamics as a Product Engineer. About this time the tachometer circuit was perfected and a patent was applied for. He was accepted by the Eastern Connecticut Chapter of CSPE as a junior member and was elected chairman of Engineer's Week in 1957.

Among the various projects that he completed, was the design and construction of an economic submarine simulator for use in research that was and still is being carried on at Electric Boat.

He started to manufacture electronic tachometers in his basement. The going was rough for an unknown brand. He built 80 tachometers the first year by himself, and 200 the second year with one technician. In 1959, He slashed his price drastically, and for the first time, business started to roll in. 1959 was also the year he obtained his professional Engineers License and the year he left Electric Boat to devote himself full time to the Faria Corporation.

Things were by no means prosperous in those years. The business was run on borrowed money. In January 1960, he went off to man his exhibit at the motor boat show in New York City, where he landed an order for 1,000 tachometers, and the business grew right out of the basement into a fourth floor factory loft.

In 1962, the first order for Ford Motor Company for accessory tachometers came in. In 1963, Ford ordered tachometers for their production cars; first for the Falcon Sprint, and then the Comet and Mustang. Faria Corporation worked night and day in desperate attempt to keep up with the Ford production lines. Production rose to 100,000 tachometers a year. This necessitated moving to larger quarters, which is still the location of Faria Corporation, in Uncasville, CT, occupying 88,000 square feet.

Tom began working on a new movement for his tachometer in 1964 and in February 1965, the Faria meter Corporation began production of a patent pending meter movement. The meter became patented in 1970.

In 1967, The Faria Corporation acquired the Rochester Gauge Division of American Standard Controls, located in Detroit, Michigan. This facility was moved to the Uncasville plant. These additional facilities enabled Faria Corporation to manufacture a complete line of gauges for sale to truck, Tractor and Automobile Manufactures throughout the United States and Foreign Countries, as well as to the aftermarket.

Tom was chosen "Engineer of the Year" in 1966 by the Connecticut Society of Professional Engineers for what the society felt was "an outstanding example of what can be accomplished by an engineer who uses his God-given talents and whatever education he has, to create something useful, usable, and marketable and keeps his eye on his goal".

After 50 years in business, Faria Corporation now manufactures a wide array of instrumentation for Marine, Heavy Duty, Commercial, and Recreational OEM and aftermarkets. The Faria Corporation currently employs almost 300 people and is located in Uncasville, Connecticut, USA. In 1999 the Faria Corporation's products became CE Certified and in 1998 the Faria Corporation became ISO 9001 Registered.