Bill Derrick graduated from Union College in 1939 with a degree in electrical engineering. Upon graduating, he went to work as a design engineer for Curtis Wright, an aircraft manufacturer located in Buffalo, New York where he remained until 1946. In 1947, and by now married to his wife Bette, he joined forces with his father-in-law, William L. Wettlaufer, an inventor who held a series of patents to manufacture high frequency therapeutic vibrators and slow speed vibrating screen machines. Together, they developed a high speed vibrator to shake testing sieves. Observation of rapid separation of particles through various sieve sizes and the unusual active behavior of particles when subjected to high frequency vibration spawned the idea for larger commercial designs.

In order to develop and market this idea, Bill Derrick went out on his own, and in 1951 he teamed up with Messinger Bearing Co. to develop the first four bearing high-speed screen vibrator. It was in this same year that Derrick Manufacturing Company was formed as a proprietorship. In 1952, Dick Vale, one of Bill's cousins joined the company, followed shortly afterwards by his brother Bob Derrick in 1954. They occupied space owned by The Screen Equipment Company, a manufacturer of large aggregate screening machines in Buffalo.

In 1955 the company relocated to 590 Duke Road, where for the sum of $25,000, a 3,600 ft² (334 m²) structure was erected to cover needs for both manufacturing and office space. Today, this original space is still a part of Derrick's 300,000 ft² (27,870 m²) facility.

During the first half of its existence, Derrick Manufacturing focused on applications in the mining, industrial, and chemical industries and built an impressive reputation for solving a wide variety of the most difficult fine screening and separation problems.

A major turning point occurred in 1977 just after Derrick had developed new non-blinding, multi-layered fine screen assembly, the patented Derrick Sandwich Screen® panel. A Derrick sales representative suggested there could be possibilities for Derrick technology in the oil and gas drilling industry in the area of solids control. He was right and later in 1977, Derrick Equipment Company was established in Houston, Texas to serve that market. A significant milestone in the oil and gas industry occurred in 1986 when Derrick teamed with Oiltools International Limited for worldwide sales and services. Today, sales in the oil and gas drilling industry account for a substantial part of Derrick business.

While the drilling industry may account for a large share of Derrick business, the other business segments continued to grow. As shown in the table below, Derrick is well known for many significant innovations. In 1977, along with the Sandwich Screen® panel, Derrick developed the unique Multifeed screen for fine wet sizing applications. Performance and capacity of the Multifeed exceeded all existing screening technology and helped Derrick to become the most widely recognized name in the fine wet screening arena.