1968 - Modest but promising beginning ...


La Boite à Outils Enr. was founded in august 1968. It is the name wich the company carried at the time of it's foundation. It was founded by Mr. Lionel Lessard and his wife Yolande Couture. Modest beginning and tremendous will power was deployed to develop solid bases to insure a constant evolutive progression of the entreprise. The living room and the basement of the family house, as well as a 28 foot trailer have been used both as office and warehouse for the first 10 years of existence. The total surface at this time was of 600 square feet and the company could be defined more as a specialized hardware store rather than an industrial supplier. Indeed they we're selling hammers, srewdrivers, pulleys and casters, a few cutting and measuring tools.

1976 - New solid bases

Then, the company was relocated in a 2800 square feet building at the 205 Chalifoux street in Sherbrooke Qc. During this period, the adition of André and Claude sons of Lionel will cause to create a reorientation towards field involving the metal machining. The cutting tools, the metrology instruments and machine tool accessories, conventional and numerical control computer oriented became gradually, as from this moment, the main stream of the company. However it will never deny its origins by preserving the product lines wich enable the company to become what it was. At this point, the need to incorporate and changing the company's name become evident and simultanieously, André and Claude became shareholders. Already, Lionel had a good picture for the new company's name: LYRFAC. Not only it preserved its family dimension, Lyrfac is an acronym made up of the first letter of each Lessard family member's name by chronological order, but it also gave a name with a more industrial and international consonnance. Wich helped to break the linguistic barriers.