Celebrating 80 Years of Innovation
The year 2025 marks 80 years in business for CRL. On our 80th anniversary, we reflect on our rich history of industry-first technology and how our past innovations have helped pave the way for an exciting future.
In 1945, at the close of World War II, three friends from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came together to found Central Research Laboratories. Using their experience performing research for the U.S. War Department, they set up shop in Red Wing, Minnesota, with a focus on developing safe handling solutions for radioactive materials. Soon, CRL was supplying the growing U.S. Atomic Energy Commission with transfer systems that protected operators and scientists while they performed critical research into atomic energy.
CRL grew during the Cold War years, and the founders’ early innovation led to a complete line of remote-handling and containment solutions. Today, CRL provides transfer technology for potent and aseptic materials in the biopharmaceutical, radiopharmaceutical and nuclear industries.
That legacy of innovation is alive today in our telemanipulators, glove ports, alpha/beta transfer systems, single-use beta bags and waste-drum transfer systems. Around the world, these products allow operators and scientists in the Nuclear and Life Science Industries to safely and efficiently perform their work.
CRL’s innovations these past 80 years have set us up for the remarkable work we continue to do, keeping people and products safe in the most efficient ways possible. As we look forward to another incredible decade of innovation, we carry with us the fundamental values of our founders:
- Lead the way with new technologies
- Help our customers tackle their most demanding problems
- Serve as stewards in our community