Northbrook knob manufacturer marks 90 years in business

NORTHBROOK — Before Lutefish engineers could launch a revolutionary new streaming device that would enable musicians to collaborate online in real time — with minimal to no sound lag — their fledgling company faced a dilemma.

Attempts to make their own all-important control knobs were failing, said Patrick Finn, business manager for Lutefish, an offshoot of Minnesota-based Wenger Corp.

“We wanted a knob that was both functional and aesthetically pleasing,” he said. “We were struggling with the size to get the plastic knob to fit properly over the potentiometer to be snug enough that it wouldn’t fall off but not so snug that we’d damage the product trying to get it off.”

Enter Rogan Corp., a Northbrook-based manufacturer of knobs, handles and clamping levers now celebrating its 90th year in business.

“I had come across Rogan Corp. at the National Association of Music Merchants’ annual conference in 2023,” Finn said. “We were in the middle of testing our knobs, and I said ‘Well, we just really need to work with them.’”

Rogan Corp.’s expertise in custom molding put the Lutefish project back on track, he added.

“I think what we really got from Rogan was the experience to not have to figure out the right tolerance,” he said. “They have an inner spring that creates tension and provides the perfect fit every time. It enabled us to move the project along more quickly.”

Such narratives are music to Ed Rogan II’s ears. Now semi-retired, Rogan, who is in his early 80s, still maintains the title of owner and president. He is the son of Edward Rogan Sr., who filed his first-ever Rogan Brothers tax form in late March of 1934, having incorporated a business with his younger brothers, Jim and Nicholas. Initially, the trio’s product was calligraphy: diplomas for schools and universities; baptism, confirmation and wedding certificates for the Archdiocese; and other jobs for the City of Chicago.

The brothers had immigrated to Chicago from Canada in the late 1920s, securing a small apartment on South Michigan Avenue just before the Great Depression. They had no car, and found their customers along the street car lines that existed at the time, Ed Rogan II said.

The brothers later got into hot stamping, and found themselves in high demand during World War II, when the U.S. Navy hired them to hot stamp degree marks onto gunship aiming devices.

After the war, the company, which had grown from three owners to 24 total employees, went back down in size to the original three, Rogan said.

It was time to reinvent themselves again, something the brothers would do multiple times throughout the decades.

“That’s when they bought some molding machines,” Rogan said. “They had been marking molded plastics, and they noticed that all of the molders drove the newest cars.”

The brothers then worked with big Chicago manufacturers like Amphenol and Sunbeam. They garnered another military contract to custom mold a fighter jet pilot’s handle. They also began molding heat-resistant stove and other appliance knobs. In the late 1960s, Jim Rogan gambled on getting away from just black-and-white knobs to products with a bit more pizzazz, said his nephew, who took over the business in 1985.

“We were the first company to come up with aluminum-skirted knobs,” Rogan said. “But the only appliance company wanting them was Dow Corning. Then, JFK said ‘We’re going to be the first to go to the moon.’ And the instrumentation industry took to our knobs. They loved the aluminum skirts.”

The resulting influx of revenue allowed Rogan Corp. to invest in injection molding machines vs. the much more time-consuming tech of compression molding.

Flash forward to today, and Rogan Corp. employs 12 men and 15 women at its 42,000-square-foot facility at 3455 Woodhead Drive, Northbrook, its sixth location since the founding brothers’ humble start in their small Chicago apartment.

Currently, the company primarily manufactures and markets what Rogan calls “sexy wingnuts,” along with adjustable handles, levers and knobs for industries including medical, furniture and fixture makers, power equipment and tools, kitchen and cooking, marine, aerospace, lawn and garden, lab equipment, toys and leisure, automotive, dental and consumer electronics. They’ve also gotten back into more challenging, custom molding jobs — such as the one recently completed for Lutefish.

“They built a custom injection molding tool specific to our design — two of them actually, one for the larger knob and one for the smaller,” said Lutefish’s Finn. “From the outside, they made it look exactly how we wanted it to look, and from the inside, they made it do exactly what we needed it to do.

“They were really helpful in ensuring that our product was going to function,” he added. “It’s clear that their 90 years of experience helped our project to launch successfully.”

 

For more information about Rogan Corp., visit rogancorp.com.