Parts made in a Brooklyn Park manufacturing plant have kept former Vice President Dick Cheney alive. They also have kept airplanes in the sky and some of the nation's biggest companies rolling.
They have even landed on the moon.
David S. Lilja founded Lowell Inc. in 1964, and for nearly 50 years the small contract manufacturing firm has been a big player in the computer, aerospace and medical device industries by making individual components for scores of companies across the nation, including Honeywell, Control Data and General Electric.
Lilja, of Edina, was in a care center for the past year and died Nov. 30 of an undetermined cause, said his son Mike of Dayton, Minn. He was 85.
A graduate of Edison High School, where he lettered in tennis, David Lilja attended the University of Minnesota for two years before entering the workforce at the former Champion Outboard in Minneapolis. He later took a job at a machine shop in St. Louis Park, where he met Lowell Thorud. The two became fast friends and branched out on their own to form Lowell Inc. Thorud made the parts. Lilja sold them.
"You still had to make a quality product at a competitive price," Mike said. But "my dad did get to know people. That is what he got to be known for."
Lilja eventually bought out Thorud and moved the company to Brooklyn Park. He kept the Lowell Inc. name to maintain the identity because the company had become well known.
Over the years Lilja expanded Lowell from a single machine to a multifaceted plant that now employs more than 75 people. The firm has made everything from screws, caps, rods and hooks to fuel nozzles, air caps and heat shields. Its parts have been used on aircraft fuel metering and guidance systems.
