Chrima began with
one man, an idea,
and the
‍Determination
to make it work

We pride ourselves on maintaining clear strategic direction and a desire to innovate, but to design the future, it’s important that we reflect on our past. For that, we’re going to take you back to mid 1950's when our founder Bill Christian started to dream of running his own metal fabrication shop.

When Bill came to Canada in 1954, he settled in Shakespeare, Ontario; a small rural town about 2 hours west of Toronto and an hour outside the London and Kitchener/Waterloo regions. He began working for a company in the nearby city of Stratford where he built fire engines and other equipment. Through his work in the community, he started recognizing a demand for custom metal fabrication; a service he knew he could provide based on his past apprenticeships crafting presses for cinder blocks.

In 1960 he purchased 3 acres of land and in his spare time, dug a well by hand, built a 30 foot by 30 foot building and began obtaining the necessary tools to open his own shop.

As he worked to acquire new customers and grow the business, he continued working full-time at the company in Stratford.

In 1963, Chrima – named after our founder Bill Christian and short for Christian Machine – had grown to the point where Bill was able to make the company his full-time focus; and in 1971, Chrima Iron Work was registered as a company in Canada.

Throughout our nearly 60-year history we’ve gone from a hand-built building with 1960’s era welding and metal working equipment to a 65,000 square foot modern facility equipped with flat and tube laser systems, manual and CNC forming equipment, robotic welding technology and more; and we have already begun adopting Industry 4.0 practices into our business. Even through this growth, many of the companies we worked with decades ago remain our customers today. We have also remained a family business, with Bill's son Dan Christian as the acting CEO.