Thomas K. Houck

President and CEO Nichols Portland, Inc.

Last Reviewed: September 27, 2026

Executive Summary

Thomas K. Houck is President and CEO of Nichols Portland, Inc., a private-equity-owned metal-forming manufacturer whose lineage runs back to W.H. Nichols, founded in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1904 and the first company to produce gerotor pumps. Owned since 2016 by Altus Capital Partners, the business has under his leadership grown from a Maine-based gerotor and pump maker into a multi-plant group making conventional powder metal, stainless powder metal, metal injection molded and additively manufactured components, pumps and specialty valves for automotive, off-highway and industrial customers, with its corporate headquarters now in St. Marys, Pennsylvania.

Career Highlights

• President and CEO of Nichols Portland, Inc.; named to the role in 2018, two years after Altus Capital Partners bought the business from Parker Hannifin.
• Led the December 2021 asset acquisition of Alpha Precision Group LLC, which brought five plants in Pennsylvania and Michigan and more than 400 employees into the company.
• Announced the June 2023 acquisition of the assets of Neota Product Solutions LLC, a metal injection molding prototyping and production specialist.
• Oversaw the 2019 opening of a dedicated 20,000 sq ft pump division facility in South Portland, Maine.
• Led the move into a larger headquarters and technology hub at the St. Marys Industrial Airport Park, announced by Pennsylvania in October 2025 as a project creating 42 jobs and retaining 285.

Professional Journey

Nichols Portland began as the Portland, Maine division of W.H. Nichols Co., opened in 1968, and was owned by Parker Hannifin from 1984 until March 2016, when Altus Capital Partners II acquired it and formed Nichols Portland LLC. Houck was named President and CEO in 2018; Altus publicised his appointment that June.

His first visible project was on the pump side. In September 2019 the company opened a renovated 20,000 square foot facility in South Portland for testing and assembly of niche mechanical and electric pumps, which Houck described as a way to offer customers “a more holistic solution” alongside the powder metal gerotor components still made at the Congress Street plant.

The larger change came at the end of 2021, when Nichols Portland acquired the assets of Alpha Precision Group, a St. Marys, Pennsylvania group whose roots lay in Alpha Sintered Metals and which had added precision compacted components, metal injection molding and specialty valve businesses. The combination roughly reshaped the company: both brands now trade as Nichols Portland, Inc., offering conventional and high-temperature stainless powder metal, metal injection molding, 3D metal printing and high-precision valve assemblies. In June 2023 he added Neota Product Solutions, a metal injection molding provider covering early prototyping through full production, whose president Jason Osborne joined the group. Company-branded entries won awards at the Metal Powder Industries Federation’s design excellence competitions in 2023 and 2024.

In October 2025 the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development announced that NPI had moved from its Ridgway metal injection molding site into a larger facility in the St. Marys Industrial Airport Park under a ten-year lease, which also serves as its corporate headquarters for six manufacturing locations. Houck said the company would build on “the expertise and solid workforce that has been the foundation of growth across the entire powder metal industry.”

Before Nichols Portland, SEC filings of ARC Group Worldwide list a Thomas Houck as Vice President of Manufacturing for its metal injection molding division, employed through its FloMet LLC subsidiary from 2011 and still in that role in the company’s October 2013 proxy statement. Trade coverage of his 2018 appointment is reported to describe him as a former ARC Group Worldwide vice president with more than 25 years in powder metallurgy; that article could not be read directly.

Education

No education record was found in any company, regulatory or press source reviewed.