Moog Inc.
A maker of precision motion-control systems, Moog builds the hydraulic valves and actuators that steer aircraft, missiles, and even spacecraft—its flight-control parts help gimbal the Saturn V rocket engines that carried Apollo astronauts to the moon. Founded in 1951, the company was born when engineer Bill Moog invented the electrohydraulic servo valve in a dirt-floored airplane hangar in East Aurora, New York, and started a business with his brother and a colleague. The name simply comes from the founder, and its headquarters still sit in that same upstate town.