Mattei - The Company

The origins

The Mattei company was founded in 1919, by Enea Mattei. At the time he was a young officer in the Army Engineering Corps and had to decide whether to accept a secure job in the Engineering Corps or try and pursue his individual aspirations. Though aware of the limited financial resources he had at his disposal, the young entrepreneur chose to start up a business in the compressed air industry.

Development and success in the Italian market

Fifteen years later, Mattei air compressors were well established in the Italian market and in 1934 the firm manufactured the first portable diesel engine driven compressor.

In 1938 Enea Mattei took over a cast iron foundry in Monza, and also started to build on his success by constructing a new factory in Milan in via Feltre.

As the Second World War broke out his business, as with many others at the time, experienced a sharp downturn. However after the war and as reconstruction began, the business started to pick up and between 1946 and 1952, Enea Mattei committed himself to expand and develop his company.

Mattei started to design and produce rotary vane air compressors in 1958 and in 1960 became a Joint Stock Company. At this time it also commenced construction of a new plant in Vimodrone, near Milan. In 1963 Mr Giulio Contaldi took over as CEO and thanks to his added contribution the new factory opened in 1966.

In 1977 Ing. Enea Mattei SpA acquired OMIC (Officine Meccaniche Ing. Contaldi), a market leader in the production of generating sets. Four years later a new production centre in Zingonia, near Bergamo, was founded and between 1985 and 1988 subsidiaries in USA, UK and France were opened. The German subsidiary was inaugurated in 2000 and between 2004 and 2006 additional offices in Spain, Singapore and Russia followed. In 2008 Mattei opened a brand new production and support centre in the People's Republic of China.

Today Mattei holds a leading position in the Italian market and operates worldwide with 100 distributors and exports 50% of its production. The company's success is also confirmed by the ISO UNI EN 9001:2008 Quality Management System originally obtained in 1994.