In the year 1960, Giovannimaria Pensa, ODEs founder, decided to start his own machine shop. In those years, the small village of Esino Lario in the north-east of the Como Lake was suffering from the lack of qualified wo......In the year 1960, Giovannimaria Pensa, ODEs founder, decided to start his own machine shop. In those years, the small village of Esino Lario in the north-east of the Como Lake was suffering from the lack of qualified work. With his business, Mr. Pensa wished he could contribute to improve the situation creating new qualified working places. His idea was successful and the manufacture of precision mechanical parts on commission for companies operating in the car, radio, television, and clock-manufacturing sectors immediately flourished and kept growing for more than a decade. The end of the 60s was characterized by the shift from metal to plastic components. At that time, a courageous choice became inevitable. Giovannimaria Pensa, who has always been a perspicacious and far-sighted entrepreneur, decided to transform his business and became a manufacturer of stainless steel rapid insertion systems for producers of kegs for the beverage industry. But his first experience in the manufacturing of precision mechanical parts and the following one working with stainless steel led the founder of ODE to something new: solenoid valves. The success was so rapid that, in 1978, the company was divided into two core businesses: ODL components for drink dispensers, and ODE Officine di Esino Lario for the production of solenoid valves.