As Zemarc Corporation approaches its 50-year milestone, the California-based fluid power and motion control specialist finds itself at a pivotal intersection of legacy and reinvention. Founded in 1976, Zemarc has spent five decades building technical depth in hydraulics, pneumatics, and process gas systems, industries that often operate behind the scenes but remain critical to aerospace, defense, manufacturing, testing, and emerging space launch applications.
Today, with approximately 50 employees across multiple California locations, Zemarc is using its anniversary not as a retrospective moment, but as a forward-looking platform. The company is expanding geographically, reshaping how engineering knowledge is developed and transferred, and responding to market volatility with faster, more flexible system design.
Zemarc’s 50th anniversary will officially arrive in October 2026, with celebrations planned throughout the year. Internally, the milestone is being marked not by a single event, but by recognition of employee tenure, honoring team members with five, 10, 20, and even 30-plus years at the company. That focus reflects a core principle that has remained consistent since the company’s founding: Zemarc is, by design, an employee-first organization.
That philosophy has shaped not only how the company retains talent, but how it adapts during periods of economic instability. Manufacturing has faced extended lead times, shifting tariffs, supply chain disruptions, and unpredictable customer demand over the last several years, and Zemarc’s response has been to strengthen internal collaboration and decision-making rather than centralize authority at the top.
Employee-driven leadership structures now play a formal role in shaping the company’s direction. Two internal employee resource groups, the Customer Success Team and the Internal Resource Committee, serve as cross-departmental bodies that help leadership prioritize operational improvements and customer experience challenges. Rather than relying on a single executive viewpoint, Zemarc uses these committees to uncover issues early and align teams across locations. This bottom-up approach has become increasingly important as the company grows and diversifies its customer base, particularly in technically demanding sectors such as aerospace and space launch.
One of the most defining shifts in Zemarc’s evolution has been the deliberate build-out of a specialized engineering team focused on advanced applications. While the company supports a wide range of industries, aerospace has become a major driver of its technical development strategy.
Elizabeth Meyer, Principal Systems Engineer, describes aerospace engineering as fundamentally different from many traditional fluid power projects. Unlike repeatable industrial systems, aerospace and space launch applications often involve unfamiliar fluids, extreme temperatures, unique materials, and unconventional operating conditions. Engineers must adapt quickly and work directly with customers who may not be fluent in fluid power terminology.
“When you’re working with these newer space launch companies, it’s really important to be willing to try new things and push the boundaries of your knowledge,” Meyer says. “You can’t just fall into the same routine.”
Fluid power itself is a broad umbrella, encompassing hydraulics, pneumatics, and process gases. While these systems share common valving and control principles, each application introduces distinct engineering considerations. Zemarc’s engineering group spends significant time translating between customer language and system requirements, often educating client engineering teams along the way.
That educational role has become a competitive advantage, particularly as fluid power remains underrepresented in formal engineering curricula. Meyer notes that many engineers entering the workforce have little exposure to fluid power concepts unless they come from specialized programs or agricultural engineering backgrounds.
Zemarc’s engineering team is notable not only for its technical focus, but for its composition. The current engineering group is entirely women, a rarity in the fluid power and manufacturing sectors. Over the past year, the company added two new engineers, strengthening both its systems engineering and sales engineering capabilities.
The visibility of women in hands-on engineering roles has also influenced the company’s approach to internships and early-career development. Zemarc actively supports engineering internships, many of which have transitioned into full-time roles, and Meyer views these programs as essential to addressing the industry’s looming knowledge gap. “For engineering, some of these internships have led to jobs in the company,” she says. “Internships are incredibly important for getting this next wave of engineers.”
As veteran engineers across the industry retire, the loss of undocumented tribal knowledge has become a growing concern, and Zemarc has responded by investing in internal education and documentation efforts designed to capture experiential knowledge before it disappears.
One of Zemarc’s most influential initiatives is its Hydraulics 101 program, developed as both an internal training platform and an external educational offering for customers. Rather than focusing on individual products, the program emphasizes system-level thinking, how components interact, how applications drive design decisions, and how modern fluid power solutions differ from legacy systems.
Internally, the program supports continuous education across departments, helping sales and engineering teams align on application knowledge. Externally, it serves as both a customer education tool and a recruiting pipeline, attracting individuals interested in entering the fluid power field. “We realized this wasn’t just important for Zemarc; it was important for the industry,” says Lucy Chen, Director of Marketing.
The program also plays a role in correcting misconceptions about fluid power, particularly in comparison to electric systems. While electrification continues to grow, Meyer notes that hydraulics still excel in applications requiring high force, precise control, and durability in harsh environments. This educational emphasis has become increasingly relevant as Zemarc works with aerospace testing facilities in regions such as Mojave, where hydraulic systems are integral to test stands and validation environments.
Zemarc’s newest growth initiative, the opening of a ParkerStore™ in Lancaster, California, represents a targeted expansion aligned with industry geography rather than simple footprint growth. The Lancaster–Palmdale–Mojave corridor has become a hub for aerospace manufacturing, testing, and space launch operations, creating demand for rapid, localized service.
Leading the new facility is Territory Manager Jannett Andrade, who describes the Lancaster location as fundamentally different from a traditional branch. “We’re targeting to open Q1 of 2026, with an open house and a full team blitz,” Andrade says. “One of our main goals is to establish ourselves in the Palmdale–Lancaster area as a ParkerStore.”
The 5,000-square-foot facility is being built to function as both a warehouse and a storefront, complete with a showroom and point-of-sale system. The goal is to encourage foot traffic while showcasing not only Parker products, but Zemarc’s broader hydraulic and pneumatic offerings.
Opening a ParkerStore is not a routine expansion; it reflects a level of trust from the manufacturer, which grants Zemarc responsibility for the territory. Chen emphasizes that the decision was made collaboratively with Parker based on Zemarc’s track record of technical capability, investment, and customer engagement.
One of the Lancaster facility’s primary value propositions is speed. The store is being equipped with hose assembly and cleaning capabilities, supported by dedicated inventory to enable rapid turnaround. “We already have a crimper on site, and that’s going to be one of our biggest value-add services,” Andrade says. “We’re investing in inventory so we can assemble hose assemblies quickly and keep customers moving.”
The location is designed to serve customers who “needed things yesterday,” particularly in aerospace ground support, testing operations near Mojave, general manufacturing, equipment rental yards, and municipal service providers such as street sweeper fleets.
In addition to reactive service, the Lancaster team will emphasize preventive maintenance, a critical but often overlooked component of operational reliability. Zemarc will offer free on-site inspections, helping customers avoid costly downtime. “If you don’t maintain your system, it’s going to get very expensive,” Andrade says. “You end up down for a month or two waiting for a part you could have pre-ordered if you had seen the issue coming.”
Certainly, the company’s ability to deliver under pressure has been reinforced by strategic vendor relationships, particularly with U.S.-based manufacturers capable of customization and fast turnaround. One such partner is DMIC, a valve and manifold manufacturer that has supported Zemarc through periods of extreme supply chain disruption.
From an engineering standpoint, DMIC’s flexibility has been critical. Meyer highlights their willingness to machine customized manifolds and specialty valves, capabilities that are often difficult to secure from larger, more rigid manufacturers. “Being able to quickly customize something to fit customer specs has been really helpful,” she says, particularly in space launch applications involving unusual gases, temperatures, or materials.
Chen adds that DMIC’s responsiveness during tariff fluctuations and pandemic-era shipping delays provided stability when lead times elsewhere became unpredictable. The manufacturer also pursued additional certifications at Zemarc’s request, supporting applications in process gas and biomedical environments that require stringent cleanliness standards. These partnerships enable Zemarc to offer alternatives when a single supplier cannot meet customer needs, an increasingly important capability as manufacturers hedge against uncertainty.
Another major evolution at Zemarc has been the development of its Zemarc Power Unit (ZPU) program. Introduced two years ago, the program was designed to address a growing demand for fast-delivery hydraulic power units without sacrificing customization. Initially, adoption was gradual; over the past year, however, interest has surged. Meyer notes that Zemarc has completed more power unit projects in the last year than in the previous five combined, driven largely by customers who need systems quickly and are willing to collaborate on specifications to reduce lead times.
Traditional aerospace customers often require highly specific designs, while space launch companies prioritize speed and adaptability, and Zemarc works with both, helping customers understand where compromises can accelerate delivery without undermining performance. “We’ve been able to find happy mediums with them,” Meyer explains, enabling faster deployment while maintaining quality.
The ZPU program is supported by strategic inventory decisions at Zemarc’s Fresno facility, where commonly used components are stocked to enable rapid assembly. This approach reflects a broader shift toward responsiveness as a competitive advantage in manufacturing.
While sustainability is not positioned as a headline initiative, it increasingly factors into Zemarc’s engineering decisions, particularly through system footprint reduction and fluid selection. Custom manifolds, for example, allow engineers to consolidate components and improve energy efficiency over a system’s lifecycle. Meyer also points to a growing push for more environmentally sustainable hydraulic fluids, especially in coastal and water-adjacent applications such as space launch sites. These fluids can reduce environmental impact in the event of a spill but often introduce tradeoffs related to cost, viscosity, temperature sensitivity, and wear characteristics.
Rather than promoting one-size-fits-all solutions, Zemarc’s role is to educate customers on these tradeoffs and help them select fluids and system designs appropriate to their operating conditions.
Despite widespread enthusiasm for artificial intelligence across manufacturing, both Meyer and Chen are candid about its current limitations in fluid power engineering. The issue is not resistance to technology, but the lack of reliable data; much of fluid power knowledge exists as undocumented experience rather than published material, and existing textbooks are often decades old and fail to account for modern electrohydraulic and integration practices. AI tools, drawing from outdated or incomplete sources, struggle to distinguish between civil engineering hydraulics and mechanical fluid power applications. This reality reinforces Zemarc’s emphasis on documentation, internal education, and direct mentorship as the primary means of advancing expertise.
As the company enters its sixth decade, its strategy is defined less by scale than by depth. The Lancaster expansion, ZPU program, and educational initiatives all reflect a common theme: moving faster without losing rigor.
For Meyer, the most encouraging shift is the growing industry-wide recognition of the knowledge gap and the need to address it proactively. “We’re starting to see companies worry more about the long term,” she observes.
Zemarc’s approach suggests that the future of manufacturing will not be driven solely by automation or digital tools, but by organizations willing to invest in people and the difficult work of translating experience into shared knowledge. At 50, Zemarc is not simply reflecting on where it has been but actively shaping where fluid power goes next.
