About Cavanaugh Machine Works, Inc.

Founded in 1947 in Wilmington, CA as a ship repair business, Cavanaugh Machine Works, Inc. has an established reputation in the maritime and industrial communities for high quality work.  We specialize in providing heavy machining and fabricating, as well as mechanical repairs, modifications, and upgrades.

A family-owned enterprise, we moved in 1998 to much larger quarters at our present location in Long Beach.  Please see the Facilities and Equipment section for details. This facility allows us to provide much heavier machine shop services of all types.

Our heavy mechanical section provides repairs, complete overhauls, upgrades, and modifications to a wide range of equipment, including large hydraulic cylinders, gearboxes, pumps, container and other spreader bars and all types of hoisting and material handling equipment. We commonly engineer upgrades to customer’s equipment to provide extended service life.

Of high importance to us is our newer focus on manufacturing of specialized components for the container handling community.  We produce numerous after- market parts such as twistlock pins, all meeting or exceeding OEM specifications. These are marketed nationally, and we stock commonly used items.  Please see our Manufactured Products page on this site.

We are involved in our community, being a corporate sponsor for the “Operation School Bell” program of the Assistance League of Long Beach, which provides school uniforms for kids in need.  We are also supporters of the Long Beach Day Nursery.

For our employees, we strive to set ourselves above the industry standard for compensation and benefits. Our people are most important to us.  “You can have all the best machinery in the world, but if you don’t have the people, you have nothing.” –John Wells, president, CMW.

What we believe sets us apart from most service companies is our unfailing ability for urgency and reliability when a problem occurs, regardless of the conditions. We will take care of your problem first and then sort out the details after the problem is fixed and you are up and running.

We continue to diversify our business and are passionately pursuing  becoming “THE aftermarket parts supplier for the container handling industry.  Cavanaugh enjoys a solid reputation for quality,  integrity, and innovative solutions to mechanical problems. Whether you are a new or old customer, we genuinely appreciate your business and look forward to providing you with the same level of quality services and dependability we have provided our customers for over 60 years.