1949 - Year of foundation

DANTE CORNO was only 12 years old when he decided what would be his profession when he grew up! One day, during a conversation with a gentleman who owned a car parts stamping shop located near Milan, Dante asked him how those parts were being made. The answer was simply "with the dies" and Dante replied at once "I will make the dies when I grow up”. That was the beginning of the history of the founder of Corno Marco Italia S.p.A.. After school, where he distinguished himself particularly with his ability for all forms of drawings, both artistic and technical, he started working with local stamping firms where dies were used. Dante secretly maintained the tool shop "know-how" as it was not shown to any third parties how they were actually manufactured. However, he planned to expertly learn that job and worked so hard that when only 18 years old he was responsible of more than 40 workers. He had to stop his career because of the second world war. After being recruited in 1941 by the Corps of Engineers of the Italian Army, he was appointed as instructor of the radio-telegraphers  and eventually promoted  to corporal. Taken  prisoner in Sicily, he was deported to Tunisia and then to Algeria for more than three years. Finally back home on October 27th, 1945, he started working immediately, with the main goal to set up his own company. To make this feasible, with the severance pay he had received from the Army, he bought some hand tools and worked up to eighteen hours per day, both as an employee for another company and during his off evening hours doing his own job making tools. He was spending his salary by hiring local machine tools to manufacture the dies for his customers. Note: he got the first order on November 1, 1945. It was the 3rd of May 1949, when Dante decided to found his own company registering it at the local Chamber of Commerce; it was actually the first company in Lecco producing dies. He held his  father in  such a high esteem, that he decided to give his new  company his father's name, Marco. He rented a small room and bought his very first machine tool, a shaper, which today is  placed, in memory  of  the  company  history, at the entrance hall of the very modern Molteno (LC)  facility (photo on the left).

  In early 1952, the company exported dies to France. It was the very first sign of a strong vocation which would eventually reach an export ratio of 100% over the following years. Great acceptance from all the customers made the orders increase so much that more space was needed. Started in 1960 the first factory in Lecco was completed in 1962 (photo up and on the right).

1962 - Building of the first factory in Lecco

The high quality and reliability of the work done and the excellent reputation acquired made the business grow quickly.

1974 - Building of the second factory in Lecco

The sixties brought a large requirement for tools and dies since the general economy was continuously improving and, particularly, the demand for motorcycles, cars, home appliances and other consumer goods. Specializing in those sectors, Corno Marco Italia S.p.A. responded quickly to increasing orders for dies, also of bigger sizes. Given that, it was necessary to enlarge the shop floor as well as hire more personnel for the design department plus hiring more employees and installing additional larger machine tools and presses. The decision for a second building was made and land was purchased near the existing facility. The building of the second factory at the Lecco location started  in  1973  and  was  completed in 1974.  The square footage was more than doubled (photo on the right). With the aim of providing more complete service to the customers and since the dies were producing parts which needed to be assembled afterwards, a decision had to be made regarding future growth. During the seventies and eighties the company, beside the Dies Division, developed the Lecco location of the Systems Division dedicated to the designing and manufacturing of special machines,  presses  and  complete  lines  up to fully  automated systems.

1993 - Building of the factory in Calolziocorte

The Systems Division, thanks to the high level of equipment and service provided to customers worldwide, had grown substantially and more machines and more lines had to be produced. On the other hand, the size of the equipment  manufactured  had  become even larger so that they  needed  much  more  floor space to be assembled and tested to scale before being disassembled, packed and shipped. Therefore the available space in Lecco became insufficient quite soon to both production of dies and systems and, with no more land available in Lecco,  the Systems Division had to move to Calolziocorte in 1993.  This  new facility  was  just  a  few  kilometres  from  Lecco  and  had to  be expanded  one  year later,  in 1994.  Several  new  machines  and  complete  lines  were  developed  at  this site (photo on the left).