![]() Tom Vieweg (President) is responsible for the overall management of the business, sales, marketing, finance and accounting functions. Joe Carco (Treasurer) is responsible for managing Check-Mates entire quality control department. Additionally, given his inspection history, he’s often found on the production floor personally checking critical measurements for the more complex parts manufactured. Ed Kruger (Vice President) is an experienced die maker and quality inspector who provides general support for any troubleshooting or miscellaneous production projects. Today, Tom acts as president, another partner runs the shop, and the third minds the books, The arrangement seems to work and to suit the partners well. There was also a photograph of a stock car painted up with Check-Mate sponsorship colors, which led to the discovery that Tom and I shared an interest in auto racing as well as firearms, shooting, and M1911 pistols.Ĭheck-Mate Industries was started, and is still owned and operated, by Tom Vieweg and two partners. Army machine gun that Check-Mate made part of the action for some years ago as part of a military contract. And Tom Vieweg was exceedingly generous with his time, sitting down to give me the history of the company and to show me some of the toys in his office … such as a genuine U.S. To my surprise (and very great pleasure), Jackie escorted me directly into the office of Tom Vieweg, her father and the president and one of the three founding partners of Check-Mate Industries. I do not use the term “inner sanctum” lightly, by the way. Ducking into the small reception lobby to escape the rain, we informed the receptionist of who we were and, a few minutes later, Jackie Vieweg came out to introduce herself and lead us into the inner sanctum. It wouldn’t have come out and, in any event, we didn’t know if Check-Mate would approve of publicizing their location that blatantly. It was an overcast, rainy day so we didn’t attempt to take a photograph of the exterior of the building. We finally found what might have been a space near a back corner of the building and grabbed it, hoping the trash collectors weren’t scheduled to empty the dumpster we blocked when we parked. In fact, employees’ vehicles were stacked two and three deep, with no aisles between the rows, in order to get everyone into the lot. ![]() The entrance to the parking lot lay beyond the building, and it was here that we received our first hint that Check-Mate is a thriving concern. The building is not ostentatious, but the grounds appeared to be well maintained and the building itself didn’t show any evidence of neglect. The building is a one-story masonry and stone structure set on a corner and looking for all the world like any of hundreds or even thousands of small to medium sized industrial buildings all over the country. The factory lies just a couple of miles from the Southern Expressway, an easy hop once the heavy traffic closer to Manhattan has been left behind. ![]() A date was set, directions were sent, and early one morning a couple of weeks ago your roving reporter found himself crossing the Throgs Neck Bridge onto Long Island and making his way out to Wyandanch, the home of Check-Mate Industries. ![]() We made an initial inquiry to Jackie Vieweg, Check-Mate’s Director of Marketing, and she graciously invited us to visit the factory at any time. M1911.ORG set out to answer these questions, and yours truly was assigned the task of trekking to the home of Check-Mate Industries to see what lies behind the name. Who are they, what are they, where did they come from? Perhaps most important, how good are they and what assurance is there that their products are “quality” products? By Harwood Loomis (e-mail the revelation approximately two years ago that a hitherto unheralded company somewhere in New York state was one of the OEM manufacturers of magazines for Colt’s 1911 pistols, and that this company was expanding into direct, outside sales, there has been considerable “buzz” about Check-Mate Industries.
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