Company History

Sherry Laboratories traces its beginnings to 1947, when John M. Sherry, a chemist and metallurgist, founded the company in the basement of his home. Providing quality testing services to several East Central Indiana firms quickly earned Sherry’s company a reputation for excellence it maintains to this day.

Originally acquired by Ontario Corporation in 1969, before being purchased by Sherry Holdings LLC in 2006, Sherry is a network of seven testing facilities supporting customers in the aerospace, automotive, consulting, defense, food processing, gas and oil production, manufacturing, medical, nuclear, petrochemical, pressure vessel, and remediation industries. Clients across the United States and throughout the world utilize Sherry to certify products, conduct failure analysis, offer solutions to highly technical problems, provide quality control, and serve as expert witnesses in litigation support. In addition to its testing prowess, SL manufactures top-of-the-line analytical gas reference standards traceable to the National Institute of Standards Technology for the calibration of gas chromatographs. The largest of Sherry’s facilities is located in Daleville, Ind. The spacious 53,725-square-foot complex has housed SL’s administrative offices since late 2004. The microbiology and environmental labs and members of the Sherry Engineering Group moved into the structure in September of 2005. The metallurgical lab completed its move in late December of 2005.

The Daleville complex is not the most recent addition to Sherry’s network, however. In 2005, the company acquired a microbiological/environmental testing lab in Warsaw, Ind., before purchasing Edglo Labs in Fort Wayne in November of 2007. The Edglo purchase allowed Sherry Laboratories to merge its existing facility in Fort Wayne, acquired in 1992, into Edglo’s 15,000-square-foot facility. Including its environmental facility in Columbus, Sherry has four facilities in the state of Indiana.

The Warsaw, Fort Wayne and Columbus (1995) facilities result from strategic acquisitions. A similar strategy in Oklahoma resulted in the company’s first expansion outside the Hoosier borders. The outcome resulted in Sherry increasing its nonmetallic testing capabilities and allowed the company to enter the flammability testing market.

The growth within the Sooner state culminated when Sherry welcomed Midstates Analytical Laboratories into its family in 1999. The Broken Arrow facility combines with Daleville’s lab to offer manufacturers a range of services including evaluations of alloys and specialized chemical, mechanical, and metallurgical testing. Sherry has consolidated its nonmetallic and flammability testing operation into this facility.

With an ever conscious eye toward expanding its customer base and providing existing clients the most comprehensive array of testing to be found under one banner, Sherry’s borders advanced to the Southeast in 1991 with the purchase of James Laboratories in Lafayette, La. The facility provides environmental testing to a variety of industries including oil, manufacturing, and municipal wastewater treatment plants. Bioassay testing capabilities were added in 1998.

The growth continued in 1998 with the purchase in Scott. La., of a facility which specializes in the blending of certified gas references standards and hydrocarbon testing services.

Sherry’s seven facilities feature a work force of nearly 250 dedicated scientists, technicians and professional staff who combine to conduct more than 780,000 tests per year for clients located thoughout the United States and across the world.