The peephole in the foyer door of the 1920s dancehall and theatre is an apt architectural detail. During the prohibition years, one wouldn’t be allowed to join the crowd inside before undergoing peephole scrutiny. A few years later in 1932, the second story of the brick building that we’re touring in midtown Needham, MA changed occupants. On the same oak floors where people danced to the music of George Gershwin, Bessie Smith, and Al Johnson, Vita Needle, a newly founded company, started making needles and steel tubing specialties. And so it has done for more than 75 years.

Vita Needle is a family business. Frederick Hartman, whose great grandfather started the company during the Great Depression, is the fourth owner. If his son, who designed Vita Needle’s website, takes over he will be the fifth Hartman to head the company.

About 95% of Vita Needle’s employees are senior citizens working part-time. It hasn’t always been like that. A decade or so ago, Frederick Hartman turned hiring seniors into a competitive advantage. Seniors, says Rob, our courteous factory guide, are loyal, have great work ethic, and adapt well to simple technology. Younger workers may work faster but they don’t have the patience, attention to detail, or motivation of older workers.

On her workstation, Rosa Finnegan marks gauge numbers on injection needles. Rosa is 96-years-old. No, this is not a typo. She is four years short of one hundred. With pride, Rosa shows us how she operates the stamping press. One would expect her likeable, grandmotherly figure to be more comfortable in front of a sewing machine. Rosa has been with the company for 12 years and learned her skills on the job. Rob, quoting Fred Hartman, said, “If you can make it up those 19 steps (the plant is on the second floor of the building) there is a job waiting for you here.” Taking advantage of the flexible hours offered, Rosa arrives daily at 6AM and leaves at 2PM. Vita Needle factors the flexible schedules and reduced speed of its workers into its lead times. They compete on the quality and cost of their products rather than on speed and quantity.

With a permanent “Hiring” sign on the door, Vita Needle has never had a layoff. Since Vita Needle found a niche in stainless tubing specialties, after reusable hypodermic needles were banned, the business has thrived. A sense of pride and camaraderie is evident throughout the company. These members of the Greatest Generation call themselves “old people”; they are beyond the contemporary need for politically correct euphemisms. Howard, a 74-year-old mechanical engineer teases Rosa when she eats a banana. Joe, the company’s inventor, shows us a fixture he built to create minuscule custom stainless tubing parts. Ann, who inspects and packages needles to specific client requirements, joined Vita Needle 30 years ago. She wants to make sure she looks right when I take her photo.

Employees are eager to show us how they cut, sharpen, and burnish each needle individually. That, says Rob, is the best quality control system there is. The seemingly chaotic layout at Vita Needle might reveal a lesson about making industrial environments more humane and creating workplaces that prompt social interactions otherwise lost in the quest for productivity at any cost.

As Mary, 83, the office secretary, greeted us on our way out, I thought the peephole in the door might give us a glimpse of the future. These days, with the first wave of Boomers approaching retirement, the press talks about how most Americans don’t have enough money for retirement and should work well into their 80s. There are many reasons to rethink traditional retirement. Personal finance is neither the only nor the best of them. By showing that employing seniors can be good business, this old factory in Needham might be pointing to the future of social contracts.