Like many of the world’s most successful companies, Touchstone Research Laboratory has humble beginnings. With nothing more than $100, a busted electron microscope and a vision, Brian Joseph started Touchstone in 1980 in the basement of a monastery. Today, Touchstone specializes in research and development, failure analysis and testing and develops innovative technologies that are fueling advancements in the aerospace industry.
But success didn’t come overnight. Eventually, Touchstone outgrew the monastery basement and Joseph moved the company into its own facility in Wheeling. The company grew for the next 15 years and by the turn of the century started developing its own technologies.
“We’ve been able to pull off building a research laboratory and found a business model that lets us invent new things and get them to market,” Joseph said.
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