Gene Haas

Gene Francis Haas (born November 12, 1952) is the American founder, president, and sole stockholder of Haas Automation, a CNC machine tool manufacturer.

He also has a presence in motorsports, having founded NASCAR team Haas CNC Racing (now known as Stewart-Haas Racing) and the Formula One team, Haas F1 Team.

Haas graduated from California State University, Northridge in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting and finance.

He originally majored in engineering but switched to business after Lockheed nearly went bankrupt.

After graduation he was unable to find employment that paid more than what he was earning at his summer machine shop job.

So, for the next few years he worked as a machinist and CNC programmer.

In 1978, he opened Pro-turn Engineering, a small machine shop with two employees.

In 1980, Haas noticed that it took one of his employees a long time to manually position an indexer.

Haas thought that building his own indexer with a stepper motor drive would be more efficient.

He built one for himself and a few more for other machine shops.

In March 1983, he displayed his indexer at WESTEC (an industry expo).

After seeing the positive reaction of attendees, he decided to form Haas Automation to mass-produce them.

His first commercial product, the HBI-5C (Haas Brothers Indexer), sold well because it was programmable and inexpensive.

In 1986, Haas and a partner were awarded a US patent for their invention.

In 1988, Haas started production on a fully enclosed CNC machining center priced well below the competition.

Some believed Haas copied or reverse engineered this machine, but at the time existing machines were so hard to use that Haas used them as an example of what not to do.

Over time, Haas machine tools became extremely popular, mostly because they were simple, very affordable, and operator-friendly.

By 1996, Haas had outgrown its facilities in Chatsworth, California, and began a search that ultimately brought it to Oxnard, California.

In March 1997, the move was completed into the Oxnard factory, a 420000 sqft facility.

In 2002, Haas formed a NASCAR race team, Haas CNC Racing.

After purchasing the Concord, North Carolina-based Craftsman Truck race facility from Hendrick Motorsports, Haas CNC Racing began work on its first entry in the Winston Cup (now known as the NASCAR Cup Series) Series as a single-car team.

The first entry for the new team was September 30, 2002 with driver Jack Sprague, who finished 35th after a crash.

The team raced only three times in 2002.

By 2003 the team was running full-time with several driver changes over the season.

The team won its first race in the then-Busch Series in 2004 with driver Jason Leffler.

By 2005, the factory had been expanded to 1000000 sqft.

Haas Automation is now the largest machine tool manufacturer in the United States.

By 2006 the team had relocated to a new, state-of-the-art facility in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and was fielding a full-time two car team in the Cup Series.

At the end of 2008, the team was still struggling with a career-average finish of just under 27th place.

Late in 2008, Haas announced that he would join forces with driver Tony Stewart; Stewart would drive for the team and in return would be given a 50% stake in the company.

Stewart led the points for much of 2009, winning four times at Pocono, Daytona, Watkins Glen, and Kansas, ending up sixth in points.

Haas was present at the first team win in May 2009 when Stewart won the All-Star Race.

Stewart had a mediocre 2010 before picking up wins at Atlanta and Fontana, while Newman won at Phoenix.

Stewart won the 2011 Sprint Cup Championship, winning 5 of the 10 Chase races.

Haas also joined Stewart on the podium at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 20, 2011, as Stewart won the Ford EcoBoost 400 that day and claimed his third Sprint Cup Championship.

Sales for 2014 reached a record, reportedly exceeding $1 billion worldwide.

Stewart-Haas won their second Cup title with Kevin Harvick in 2014.

With Cole Custer's victory in the Truck Series event at New Hampshire in September 2014, Haas joined a select club of owners who have won as an owner in all three national touring series, joining Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress, Jack Roush, Bill Davis and Dale Earnhardt.

On September 30, 2015, Stewart announced his retirement from the Cup Series as a driver following the 2016 season.

The team currently runs cars in the Cup Series for Josh Berry (No. 4), Chase Briscoe (No. 14), Noah Gragson (No. 10) and Ryan Preece (No. 41).