APEX Gainesville

OAK Engineering & Manufacturing

Since 2023

1906 NW 67th Pl
Gainesville, FL 32653
(352) 448-8842

Overview

Oak Engineering and Manufacturing was founded in September of 2023 by Thomas Reed. It’s focus is composite design and manufacturing with additional capabilities for metallic CNC machining. Oak specializes in the uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) industry, particularly aerostructures for Group I, II and III UAVs, and uncrewed surface vessels (USV).

Oak was built around a straightforward operating philosophy: execute well, communicate clearly, and deliver on time. Before founding Oak, Thomas Reed founded Altavian, a fixed wing drone company,  which he eventually sold to FLIR Systems. His past experience as a founding drone OEM, provides OAK the understanding of the specific challenges that come with uncrewed systems and has turned many of Altavian’s UAV competitors into Oak customers. Oak’s understanding of the UAV market and UAV/USV manufacturing requirements has created rapid growth. Oak has been growing at 2-3x topline revenue each year since 2023 and is expected to expand into a new 40,000 ft2 facility in the coming months.

Oak brings additional composite manufacturing capabilities to APEX, including wet layup and resin infusion, along with developing capabilities in keyed tooling inserts and syntactic-foam aerostructures critical for Group 1-3 UAVs. Oak’s machining operation includes five (5) Haas 5 axis CNC machines and excellent metallic and composite machining supporting both tooling and flight components.