In 1953, a small technical impact company named Cliff Impact was founded in Wickliffe, OH. Founders Al Katz and Chuck Wright derived the company name from its town. Cliff produced aluminum housings for Navy proximity fuses. “The original product was made from tubing, but we thought it could be made by impacting,” recalls Katz. “We made eight million over five or six years.” Chuck Wright noted that Cliff started with six employees, but grew rapidly over the following decade.
In 1965, an aerospace forging company named Aluminum Precision Products (APP) was founded by Philip S. Keeler, in Santa Ana, California and in April that same year, Parker Hannifin acquired Cliff Impact. In 1970, Parker relocated Cliff to Eastlake, OH and by 1977 Cliff had begun producing its first aluminum high pressure gas cylinders.
In 1986, Catalina Cylinders Corporation was founded and began producing SCUBA cylinders primarily for use off the California coast. Within a year, Catalina expanded into CO2 and Oxygen cylinders. In January 1992 Catalina was acquired by APP and its 2500 ton press was moved from Huntington Beach to where it runs today in Garden Grove, CA. In 1995 Catalina purchased Parker Hannifin’s Cliff Impact facilities. In 1997, Catalina relocated the Cliff facilities to Hampton, Virginia, moving into a vacant Mercedes-Benz truck-assembly plant, to create the Catalina Cylinders Cliff Impact Division, which is known today as Catalina East.