Applied Test Systems

The founder of ATS, Norman L. Carroll, is a Kansas native who spent 15 years working as a manufacturing engineer at the Westinghouse Atomic Fuel Division plant in Cheswick, Pennsylvania. This field presented a number of unique testing and quality control applications for which Norm was constantly struggling to find suitable equipment, including various ultrasonic, eddy current, radiographic, and destructive tests. When equipment could not be found, solutions often had to be developed in-house. This situation led to Norm’s departure from Westinghouse in order to create his company, called Applied Devices, in 1965. A handful of employees initially worked in a refurbished barn that served as the company’s engineering, marketing, and manufacturing facility. In the beginning, the company’s foremost customer was the Westinghouse plant where Norm had been working. His thorough knowledge of the industry’s needs made Applied Devices an invaluable resource to that organization.