How Two Marine Corps Vets Built ICS’s Pennsylvania Calibration Lab

Instrument Calibration Solutions’ Pennsylvania lab started small. David Beier and Darrell Martin, both former Marine Corps metrologists, founded ICS in 2004 at 413 Hopewell Avenue in Aliquippa, PA. That’s still our PA flagship location today.

Built on a Marine mindset

Beier and Martin set out to run calibration the way they’d been trained: no shortcuts. The goal was A2LA-accredited, ISO/IEC 17025-compliant service accurate enough for aerospace, pharmaceutical, and automotive clients who can’t afford a bad measurement. They started that work out of a house on a hillside in Aliquippa, and stayed there as the lab grew.

Growing without moving

When ICS acquired Inspection Technologies, it added non-contact OGP (Optical Gaging Products) metrology to the PA lab’s capabilities. The Aliquippa location now has an OGP showroom where clients can see multisensor vision systems, laser scanners, and optical comparators running live instead of just reading a spec sheet.

What the growth looks like

Some numbers: ICS has nearly tripled its staff over the past year, driven mostly by demand for expanded services. That growth has come with more calibration equipment, more employee training, and better workflow processes, all without the PA lab leaving its original Aliquippa footprint. The Dayton, OH lab has grown the same way.

With more trained staff and better quality assurance oversight, turnaround times have come down, and the PA facility can now take on more complex instrumentation.

What it means for clients

• Faster turnarounds. More trained staff and better systems mean faster service without cutting corners on accuracy.
• More services in one place. The OGP showroom, mobile calibration, and a wider range of instrument categories are all available through the same lab.
• The same standard everywhere. Whether an instrument is calibrated in PA, in Dayton, or through the mobile lab, it gets the same A2LA-accredited process.

The ICS LIVE portal gives customers real-time status updates, certificate access, and calibration reminders, so tracking due dates doesn’t require a phone call.

Looking ahead

Twenty years later, the address hasn’t changed, but the lab’s capabilities have grown well beyond what Beier and Martin started with in 2004. The plan going forward is the same as it’s always been: grow through better service and equipment, not by moving out of Aliquippa.

The ICS Pennsylvania Calibration Lab Today

The ICS Pennsylvania calibration lab continues to grow in Aliquippa through better service and equipment. See our calibration services or request a quote to work with our PA team.