Tampa Brass & Aluminum

Tampa Brass & Aluminum Corp. started in 1957 as a three-man foundry. Sam Leto Sr., his 19-year-old son Sam Jr. and an uncle leased a small building and poured metal castings for the Tampa area's shipping and phosphate industry.

Within 15 years the business had about twenty employees and added machining centers so it could machine the castings it produced. In 1980 the machine shop moved into bigger quarters in North Tampa. Shortly before 1986, the company saw that the government and defense contractors were looking for quality minority suppliers, and it built a new facility beside the existing machine shop.

In 1990 it helped launch a golf charity event that has raised over $1,000,000, benefiting Children's Hospital, the Boys and Girls Club and Spinal Muscular Atrophy. The company was named U.S. Small Business of the Year for the State of Florida in 2000 and again in 2007.

Today it delivers complete to-print cast machined parts, with finishing and mechanical assembly, for metalworking industries, and about half of its work is in defense. In 2010 it began making pump and flow parts for the oil and gas industry, including pony rods and plungers. It is a family-owned business that also describes itself as minority-owned.