Wah Chang Corporation was an American manufacturing company in the metal or alloy industry based in Albany, Oregon in the United States.
[4] In 1916 (some sources say 1914[5][6]), Chinese American mining engineer Kuo-Ching "KC" Li Sr.[2] founded the company in New York state, under the name Wah Chang Trading Corporation.
In 1955, Kuo-Ching Li Sr., Founder of the Wah Chang Trading Corporation, New York, sent his top engineer, Stephen W. H. Yih to the US Bureau of Mines Titanium Development Plant in Boulder City NV[8] to learn how to make the metal.
After Wah Chang was granted an additional two-year contract, it decided to build its own zirconium production facility.
And on Christmas Day 1956, just four months later, the first commercially produced batch of Zirconium sponge was pulled from the reduction furnaces at the new production facility.
[11] The Albany plant was by far the largest, and at the time of its sale to Teledyne, it accounted for around $20 million in annual revenue, with 860 employees at that location.
[12] In the early 1970s, Wing Mark proposed the idea of making high-purity Hafnium Crystal Bar to Teledyne Wah Chang Albany.