David Coy scans a The Mail-Journal article that was written about his family in 1998. InkFreeNews photo by Keith Knepp.

By Keith Knepp
InkFreeNews

SYRACUSE — For the last 75 years, there has been at least one member of the Coy family working in the Syracuse location of what is now Parker Hannifin, formerly known as Syracuse Rubber. That uninterrupted streak is coming to a close this week as Dave Coy retires after 47 years.

The lineage began in 1948 when Dave’s grandfather, Dewey, began his tenure, working at Syracuse Rubber until his death in 1960. Dave’s father, Wayne put in 41 years at the company before his retirement in 1998.

Dave’s brother, Doug, and son Jeremiah, also have worked at the plant. Dave’s mother, Betty, and her father also worked for Syracuse Rubber, along with other aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides of the family earning their living at the business.

“There was always a joke about the Coys running the place,” said Dave with a chuckle. “One family for more than 74 years at one company. You just don’t ever hardly hear of something like this.”

Throughout his nearly half-century of work, Dave has held many roles, advancing from production to supervision to management.

“The biggest thing that I’ve done that has brought a lot of joy at the end of my career is being part of the ‘high performance teams,’ ” he said. “The people in each manufacturing area collect production data. The numbers are reviewed and decisions are made on how to improve the cell. The idea is that the experts are the people who run the machines everyday. Parker believes very strongly in allowing those experts on making the call on how to improve the business. I was asked about 10 years ago to form the high performance teams, to work with them and teach them how to interpret the data. I love it because I’ve always believed that the people who are out there running the machines know better than everybody else.”

Coy is proud of the many improvements made since Parker Hannifin purchased the company. He said the work environment is much cleaner and the safety record on has improved dramatically. He said there used to be a couple of injuries every month. Right now they are getting ready to celebrate two years of being accident free. Some of the corporate heads are coming to Syracuse this Thursday to celebrate that accomplishment, as well as honor Coy for his service and retirement.

Coy said the hardest thing about retirement will be not being around the people he’s worked with throughout the years.

“I like working with people,” he said. “I’ve worked with a lot of good people. That’s going to be tough. I actually planned to work later in life. I’ll be 65 in October, but my wife, Susan, and I began a plan 8-9 years ago to get our debt load down, get our credit cards paid down, and everything has worked out well for us.”

He said they have an adult handicapped daughter for whom they provide care.

“We’ve chosen to take care of her, and that was still the right decision to make,” he said. “We’ve made a lot of sacrifices They have made some provisions for her care so we can get out and maybe do some traveling and have some time on our own. I didn’t want to go down the road a couple of years and not be able to do that. It just seems like the time is right.”

Coy said he has some work around the house that he’s looking forward to getting around to doing. He also hopes to pull his fishing gear out of storage.

“I used to fish all the time,” he said. “I haven’t fished in 6-7 years. That’s going to get fixed.”