Arlington Machine and Tool started with one man in his basement with a $700 lathe. John Staudinger started in 1963 with little money and a lathe in his newly acquired two-family house on Arlington Avenue. He had to remove his coal furnace and replace them with a gas heating system just to make room for his small Atlas Lathe.

John was born in Hungary and escaped to this country in 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution. He brought with him a technical engineering degree and determination.

Since he did not speak the language, he could not find an engineering position so he gladly took a job at minimum wage in a jobbing machine shop working as a manual lathe hand. It helped that Mr. Martin, the owner of Highland Machine, was also a Hungarian. From there he moved on to another jobbing machine shop, one which manufactured far more intricate parts. John was determined to start his own business and predicated the purchase of his first house on whether a Bridgeport could fit in the basement.

Over the years, Arlington grew, along with their reputation - right out of the basement to Getty Avenue where he built a 4,000 sq. ft. building in 1968. This facility grew into an additional 18,000 sq. ft. building in just ten short years. All of this growth was due to John's determination that his quality and versatility would be second to none. And his reputation soon spread by word of mouth throughout the industry. Today, at Arlington Machine occupies a 56,500 ft facility in Fairfield which includes a Turning Dept. equipped with 17 CNC lathes, 62 CNC machining centers, CNC Wire EDM and CNC Waterjet, 8 coordinate measuring machines, including 4 Sheffield full DCC CMM's..