Our History

Our story began in 1889, the year Sophia Blickman began manufacturing kitchen pots and pans in her garage to sell to neighbors in her community. By 1923, the garage was no longer an adequate production facility. The S. Blickman Company (as it was then known) moved to a plant in Weehawken, New Jersey and started marketing to local hospital kitchens. From a modest beginning in hospitals to expanded product lines in surgical suites, the steel-based company created an extraordinary legacy of service to the nation’s healthcare industry.

In 1969, Blickman was awarded the Silver Snoopy Award by NASA for supporting the First United States Manned Lunar Landing Project. Blickman designed and manufactured stainless steel cabinets for the APOLLO spacecraft in 1969.

To: Mr. Anthony Lorenzo, CEO Blickman Industries

Dear Mr. Lorenzo                                                                                    

         I am not sure if this story might interest you.  My father, John Thomas Auchard, worked for Blickman for over 40 years.  He was quietly proud (he spoke of it to me but hardly to anyone else) of the fact that Saul Blickman himself had asked him to make the metal container that the moon rocks would be put in on the moon.

      In 1969, during my time at NYU, I worked in New York Mayor John Lindsay’s office.  Lindsay invited a few of us to meet the astronauts on the steps of City Hall on the day of their big parade.  Decades later, in 2010, I had another opportunity to see Buzz Aldrin at a Washington, DC Embassy event, where I introduced myself, reminded him of our meeting in 1969, and mentioned that while working for Blickman my father, John Auchard, had made the metal container the moon rocks had been placed in.  Immediately Mr. Aldrin reacted.  “That BOX!!!!” he said. “It was my job to put in the rocks and carry the box back to Apollo 11.”  I nodded.  “But” he said, “it was my job to carry the box off Apollo to the right place back on earth, AND ON EARTH THE BOX WEIGHED SIX TIMES HEAVIER THAN IT HAD ON THE MOON, AND I COULD BARELY LIFT IT.  I CURSED THAT BOX!”  

      As I was about to leave the party, I went over to Mr. Aldrin to say goodbye.  “John,” he said, “it was really good to see you again.”  That “again” was pure kindness touched by nostalgia, nostalgia, surely, for us both.  He could not have remembered the grinning 1969 kid from, uh, Adam.

Best wishes,

John Francis Auchard

Time Capsule

Blickman Industries’ rich history has been preserved by the Smithsonian’s National Museaum of American History. They have archived Blickman trade literature and product catalogs from as early as the 1940s. Below is a sample from the collection - a brochure celebrating Blickman’s 50th Anniversary.