1997 Chuck owned the business.
MACHINING PLUS FABRICATION, 5-AXIS, AUTOMATION....ALL THIS PLUS 99% CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
In the manufacturing industry, particularly in small job shops, you often see companies that run their businesses today much like how they ran it a decade ago. If they make good parts and deliver them on-time, likely they are still in business…and that is good enough for them. And whether they like it or not, their business has most certainly plateaued. For other manufacturing businesses, status quo is not acceptable. This other‘breed’of manufacturing companies also makes good parts and delivers them on time. But these are companies who aren’t about ‘doing business as usual’; they are consistently investing in and bettering their company. Manufacturing Technologies Inc. (MTI) epitomizes the 2nd type of manufacturing entity. The company, based in Bernalillo, a town a short distance from Albuquerque, New Mexico, provides excellent quality parts to their customers (with a 96% rating) and has an exceptional customer satisfaction rating (99%).
MTI has long been a family business, with Chuck and wife Elaina integral to its daily operations. Their son Lucas was raised in the business (coming to work to help from the time he was 6) and joined full time as soon as he graduated from high school. Lucas says, “Chuck was always a very good business owner and mentor to me. Chuck learned machining in a time when manual machines were the norm, and with a superior understanding of machining, I learned from the best.” Chuck and Elaina are lucky. Often a machine shop is started up with a superior machinist. When he grows the business, he hopes to pass it on to one of his offspring, and often finds no family member is interested or capable of pursuing it. Lucas says from a young age, this is what he always wanted to do. He says, “I had an advantage that not many others get.” It is fair to say Lucas spent his first 5 full time years learning the business inside and out. It is also a fact that Lucas learned some very difficult lessons in his early years at the company. You see Lucas joined the company at 18, 12 years ago. That happened to coincide with the worst recent recession prior to our pandemic. During his early years with the company, he saw Chuck and Elaina make some very difficult decisions to keep the business open, and this meant laying off staff. Clearly these early years had an impact on Lucas, who has since spent sleepless nights worrying about key financial decisions and how they could affect the business. “I know how it feels when you are running a business, and some of the decisions you make will be ‘make it or break it’,” Lucas says. WILLINGNESS TO EMBRACE /INVEST IN NEW TECHNOLOGY
A SUCCESSION PLAN
Lucas is a highly trained machinist, and today you will regularly see him on the floor running a machine or programming a job. But ~5 years ago, in 2017, the owners made the decision to take the business to the next level. They moved to the state-of-the-art facility they reside in today, and the facility at 23,000 sq. ft. is 5 times the size of their previous facility. Lucas says that they have tripled the number of machines they own since moving into their current facility.
Chuck Bulow joined MTI more than 3 decades ago as an employee, in 1988. Less than a decade later, he was given the opportunity to purchase the business, and in
Lucas adds, “The year we moved, we also made the decision to bring 5 axis machining into our business.” While Lucas admits the idea of 5 axis machining was daunting at first, the MTI owners knew it was
Just what makes MTI so special? It is really several things.
A2Z Manufacturing Rocky Mountain •
28 May / June
2021
