USM takes its initials from its founder, Ulrich Schärer, and Münsingen, the Swiss village just outside of Bern where he was born. Since its creation in 1885 and without interruption, the company USM has stayed rooted in Münsingen, Switzerland.
It was originally a family-run metal factory housed in a traditional building, but it was Paul Schärer Jr., grandson of the founder and father of the current leader, who, with the intention of strengthening industrialisation, steered USM into the modern world in the early 1960s.