Back when they were students at the University of Alabama’s School of Engineering, Arnar Thors says he and Matt Fitzgerald often collaborated on class assignments and even built race cars together in design competitions.
After graduation, the two worked for several years in Birmingham as engineers before joining forces again in 2007 to start their own firm. For more than a year, they worked late nights and weekends to build their fledgling company before quitting their day jobs to run their business full time, Thors says.
Today, Fitz-Thors Engineering Inc. operates out of a 10,000-square-foot facility in Bessemer with 20 employees, including several co-op students and 10 full-time engineers, Thors says.