Future Of 119-Year-Old Maynard Steel Hangs On Last-Minute Rescue Bid
Receiver files layoff notice but says talks continue with buyers who could retain most workers.
The northwest corner of Maynard Steel’s foundry in 2019. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Unless a savior emerges, one of Milwaukee’s oldest manufacturers is poised to close after nearly 120 years in business.
Maynard Steel Casting Company has notified state officials that it expects to shut down its southside plant and permanently eliminate 77 jobs beginning Dec. 4.
The company, which entered receivership in May, filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, notice on Oct. 4 after efforts to sell the business as a going concern failed to produce a deal.
“Unfortunately, the Receiver has been unable to sell Maynard Steel’s assets as a going concern through the court-supervised receivership proceeding,” says the notice signed by receiver Devon Eggert. “Therefore, a mass layoff or plant closing will follow.”
All employee positions would be permanently eliminated and health care benefits would end Dec. 4, according to the notice.
But there remains a possibility that the 119-year-old company could be saved.
Eggert, in a press release issued Monday, said he and a team of financial advisers will continue trying to sell the company and are in discussions with “several parties” interested in acquiring its assets and hiring substantially all of its employees.
Any deal would require court approval and remain subject to higher or better offers.
Maynard Steel operates a sprawling foundry complex at 2856 S. 27th St., just north of W. Oklahoma Avenue. The company also has a warehouse at 2844 S. 29th St.
It manufactures low-carbon alloy steel castings, including large components for heavy equipment.
The company voluntarily entered a Chapter 128 receivership in May, a state court process intended to allow an independent receiver to manage the business and its debts while seeking a sale or otherwise distributing its assets.
Eggert, an attorney with Milwaukee law firm Beck, Chaet, Bamberger & Polsky, was appointed receiver May 11.
Maynard Steel reported owing at least $1.7 million to Ixonia Bank, which holds liens on the company’s business assets but not its real estate. More than 40 creditors have since filed claims in the receivership case.
The company characterized its May receivership filing as a strategic effort to facilitate a going-concern sale, which would preserve the business rather than liquidate its equipment and other assets separately.
That effort has so far been unsuccessful.
“Business and industry circumstances leave us no alternative,” Eggert wrote in the WARN notice.
The situation is similar to the financial troubles that nearly shuttered another longtime Milwaukee industrial company last year.
Milwaukee Forge, a 112-year-old Bay View manufacturer at 1532 E. Oklahoma Ave., entered receivership in 2025 and eventually issued a WARN notice saying 67 employees could be laid off after an auction failed to produce a buyer.
But the company was ultimately saved. A new ownership group, operating as Milwaukee Forgetech Inc., acquired the business for $4.6 million after a later deal emerged and was approved by a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge in November 2025.
Maynard Steel’s future now depends on whether Eggert can engineer a similar last-minute rescue.
The company dates to 1907, when Charles Maynard established Maynard Steel Casting Company at 716 Reed St., now S. 2nd St. Maynard had previously worked with Milwaukee industrial firms Filer & Stowell and Crucible Steel before establishing his own foundry.
In 1913, Sylvester Wabiszewski, a Polish immigrant and officer of Mitchell Street State Bank, acquired the struggling company and soon became its president. The Wabiszewski family would go on to own the business for generations.
Amid growing demand for steel castings during World War I, the company constructed a more advanced plant on S. 27th Street and moved to the site in 1918.
Maynard quickly became one of the Midwest’s largest electric steel casting plants, according to a history compiled by the UW-Milwaukee.
Its fortunes repeatedly rose and fell with the industrial economy.
After orders plunged following World War I, business improved as major Milwaukee manufacturers including Harley-Davidson and Allis-Chalmers began buying Maynard Steel products. The Great Depression again hit the company hard. Employment fell from about 400 workers in 1929 to just 86 in 1933. Demand generated by World War II would fuel another recovery.
By the early 21st century, Maynard remained one of the relatively few large steel foundries operating in Milwaukee.
In 2010, the company reported producing castings for mining shovels and draglines, cranes, military equipment, offshore oil drilling equipment, wind power systems and other heavy machinery.
The company describes its campus as occupying about 13 acres with about 420,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
In a 2010 profile, then-CEO Michael Wabiszewski said the company had about 200 employees, down from roughly 300 before layoffs associated with the Great Recession. The company reported 97 employees at the time of its receivership filing.
Deborah Sandahl Wabiszewski was named president and CEO in 2022.
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