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In 1958, New York-based Garlock Inc. was established as the U.S. bearing distributor for Glacier, later founding a joint venture called Garlock Bearings Inc. in 1976. As a leader in product development, GGB set industry standards for plain bearings with the introduction of the SICAL® range of aluminum alloys (1974), the filament wound product range including GAR-MAX® (1978), the marginally lubricated HI-EX® metal-polymer material (1986), the lead-free, steel-backed DP4 metal-polymer material and DP4-B with bronze backing (1995) and the EP™ range of injection-molded, thermoplastic solid polymer bearings (1996). Goodrich Corporation, then the owner of Garlock Bearings, acquired Glacier Industrial Bearings in 2001, merging the two companies to form Glacier Garlock Bearings into one bearing-company. In 2002, Goodrich spun off a group of industrial businesses to its shareholders that included Glacier Garlock Bearings. The group formed EnPro Industries Inc., an independent public company and a leading provider of engineered products for the processing and general manufacturing industries worldwide. Changing name in 2006, Glacier Garlock Bearings now operates as GGB Bearing Technology and continues to expand its global network of manufacturing facilities with the acquisitions of Böhringer Kunststofftechnik GmbH in 2007, a precision injection molder of high performance solid polymer solutions, and PI Bearing Technologies in 2011, a producer of PICAL® aluminum alloy bushing blocks and other bearing products used in fluid power applications. AS a forward thinking bearing company, GGB continues to explore new territories, landing on the planet Mars in 2012 aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover. Three DU® metal-polymer bearing parts serve as the primary suspension components for the drill spindle, one of four robust components that allow Curiosity’s drill to sample rocks in the extreme conditions of the Martian landscape.