Advanced Technical Welding Cover Story - Business NC Magazine

8/8/2019 Advanced Technical Welding Cover Story - Business NC Magazine

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C o v e r S t o r y

Promise

The

B Daid Bail

The owner of our Small Business of the Year said hed never

lay off anyone. How the recession tested this welders bond.

og Salkewicz has a yarn abot every place hehas ever worked and he sally caps it offwith a pithy lesson learned or even a moral.What goes arond, comes arond, he willconclde like a modern-day Aesop. Or, Itsnot what yo accomplish thats important, its

who yo help along the way. One in partic-lar sticks ot in his mind. It was the only jobI ever qit on the spot, says the president ofAdvanced Technical Welding Inc. in Etowah, amontain commnity near Hendersonville.

It was jst down the road from his boy-hood home in Saddle Brook, N.J. He dis-tinctly remembers Bernie, who sat behind awindow overlooking the shop oor. WhenBernie watched, everybody worked. Btthe moment he stopped, it was like someone

had blown a whistle, Salkewicz, 63, recalls.

Prodction halted. Talking began. Gossipwas rampant; back stabbing, rotine. It wasa horrible place. The friction was so thick, yocold ct it with a machete. Lesson learned?Bernie in the window prodces nothingexcept forced labor and a forced end reslt.

Moral? A harmonios environment is abreeding grond for good.

Ths spoke Salkewicz (prononcedSal-ka-wis). Itd be easy to dismiss him asjst another sententios storyteller dispens-ing tired saws were it not for the fact thathe had to stand behind one of his prononce-ments. Since 1987, when he set p his shopspecializing in making emergency repairsvia microscopic welds, he has vowed hewold never, ever lay off an employee. In

2009, he had to pt his money where his

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photographybymikebelleme


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B u S I N E S S N C

C o v e r S t o r y

mouth was specically $39,000 that camefrom cashing in one of his own certicatesof deposit. The 39 grand was abot two-thirdsof what his company lost last year, the only

time it has been in the red. He ct his ownpay 25%. Im remembering what paydaysfelt like, and Im saying to myself, Yo cantlet this car crash. I gess it was pt p orsht p. Yo said yo were going to do it.And he did.

This bsiness seems to represent andembody the standard to which every bsinessshold strive, says Shane Gebaer, generalmanager of Brshy Montain Bee Farm Inc. inMoravian Falls, last years Business north

Carolina Small Bsiness of the Year. Its onereason Salkewiczs company is this year swinner. Qite frankly, Advanced TechnicalWeldings commitment to employees pshed

them to the top for me, says Gebaer, whowith N.C. Small Bsiness Commissioner ScottDagherty and BNC Pblisher Ben Kinneyjdged the competition.

Salkewiczs storytelling starts with hisPolish immigrant grandparents, who losttheir candy store in Bayonne, N.J. andeverything else in the Depression. Theywoldnt take charity and shnned sop lines.My father came home with something oneday, and my grandmother woldnt eat it.

She was infriated. Thats the way I feel. Ican get credit anywhere, bt I dont wantcredit. His father did home renovations andkitchen remodeling. I had for jobs when Iwas a kid. We were broght p with a goodwork ethic.

He still remembers the day he was sittingin his high schools guidance ofce, poringover books on careers when he came pon adescription of what goes on in machine shops.It kind of jmped ot at me, and I said this iswhat I want to do. Apprenticing 8,000 horsover for years while attending night schoolmade him a certied machinist. His rst job,thogh, was installing phones for New JerseyBell Telephone Co. He liked the job and wason his way to becoming a spervisor, bt avisit to the the North Carolina montains in1970 changed everything.

His wife, Diane, had worked in Brevardin the mid-60s as a Catholic missionary andkindergarten teacher and wanted to movethere. As soon as he saw the place, he felt the

same way. He had never liked New Jerseysdense poplation, the dog-eat-dog atmo-sphere, the trafc. The mountains, he says,were heaven to me. They still are. Aftertrying nsccessflly to transfer to a BellSystem afliate in North Carolina, he went tothe Employment Security Commission ofceand took the rst job he interviewed for atM-B Indstries Inc. in Rosman.

Its no little feat, but Doug Salkewicz and his crew at

Advanced Technical Welding do sweat the small stuff.


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It was good to get back into a machineshop. Find something yo love to do andprse it with a passion and dont look at themoney, he advises. He operated big lathes

and grinders and did repair work on massivepmps once their worn interiors had beensprayed with liqid steel. M-B CEO EdMorrow was extremely fair, he recalls.Ed was the kind of boss that made every-body feel like they were important. If hewas in the bilding, he came over and talkedto yo.

At his next job, at T&T Machine Shop Inc. inEtowah, Joe Morgan taught him scal conser-vatism, a lesson that stck with him. He also

learned how to retain employees an impor-tant element when yo employ highly trainedand skilled welders. He felt yo shold takethe Golden Rle: Do nto others as yo woldhave them do nto yo. As with previosjobs, once Salkewicz absorbed all he cold, hefond another shop where he cold pick p anew skill. I liked learning, and whenever Ifelt a job stagnating, I moved on. At AtlasMold Inc. in Arden, he worked as a toolmaker,bilding injection molds and learning to repairthem with tiny welds. Its a skill he has passedon to the people who work for him now.

If a commercial welder is eqivalent to ageneral practitioner, he says, then a microweld-er is a srgeon. The intricate edges and detailsof injection molds are often damaged whenthe presses mistakenly close pon nits thathavent been properly ejected. Working ndera microscope, he learned to make minterepairs, adding as little as 10 thosandths ofan inch of material to a worn part. Its hardto imagine the scale of work microwelders

rotinely do or the concentration it reqires.Consider this: Viewed nder a 45-power

microscope, a pointed tool that one of Salke-wiczs welders painstakingly restored isdwarfed by the D mint mark on a penny.Its impossible to see the demarcationbetween the welded repair and the repairedpart. Another job involves an inline lter,abot the size of a fontain pen and shapedsimilarly. The edges of two tiny rectangles ofmesh screen one made of wire .002 of an

inch in diameter, the other .005 are rolled

arond one another like cigarette papersand then welded together along a seambefore being attached to the two nozzleends of the lter. See how tiny the screen is,

Salkewicz says. If the heat of the weld in anyway distorts the wire thinner than hair it wont pass inspection.

That one sed p a lot of brain cells,says Steven Chandler, who has worked forSalkewicz 21 years. It took us a day to gureot how to do it and at least an hor and a halfper part. Hes doing 150 of them. I tell mydentist I take ot my tension at night grindingmy teeth.

fter for years at Atlaslearning to make precisemicrowelds, Salkewiczdecided he wold strikeot on his own. I felt atthat point I knew enoghabot the indstry and

management practices to start my ownbsiness, and I also felt there was a need. Atthat time, October 1987, there were 22 shopsmolding plastic and bilding molds in andarond Henderson and Bncombe contiesbt no one specializing in microweld repair ofthe molds that were rotinely damaged. Withhis boss blessing, he worked at Atlas from6 in the morning to 5:30 in the evening, thendid microwelding jobs in the basement of hishose in Brevard each night ntil midnightor later. I dont nd working a chore, hesays. If you dread Mondays, nd anotherjob becase yo dont have a job yo love.

By the following April, he had enoghbsiness to qit his job. His wife helped ot,

picking p and delivering parts. In 1989, hehired Chandler, straight ot of Ble RidgeCommnity College and, a year later, JodyWood, another recent BRCC gradate. Hetrained them both. The basement was small,only 1,500 sqare feet. Yo coldnt help btbe close, Chandler recalls. Yo had someoneon yor sholder. Air conditioning was anopen door, spplemented by a hge fan. Ialways told them if we ever get ot of here,Salkewicz says, it wold be to a nice place,

not like a hot box.

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In 1992, Salkewicz designed and sbcon-tracted the constrction of the shop of hisdreams. Sngly nestled among rhododen-drons and majestic oaks, the low-slng

5,725-sqare-foot bilding looks more likesomeones posh residence than a commer-cial bilding, with a jtting roof, tintedwrap-arond windows and a handsome,anglar design. Welders have their ownofces with soundproong and doors theycan sht when a job reqires a high degreeof concentration. We were started nderone principal, Salkewicz says, if we coldmake it, I wold give it back.

Giving incldes covering all costs of

health insrance for his nine employeesand their families inclding paying theirdedctibles. The company also contribtes4% of their annal gross pay, whether theyare part-time or fll-time, to a retirementaccount. Wages average about $45,000 a year,if you include the cost of benets. Chandlerand his co-workers will tell yo AdvancedTechnical Welding is a good place to workjdged by any standard, bt ask them whatsbest abot their jobs and theyll tell yo. Itstrst, Chandler says. He gives yo somethingand trns yo loose with it. Its the freedom todo yor job withot a constant What areyo doing yo gotta do it my way.

Carolyn Powell has known Salkewiczsince they worked together at M-B in 1972.When it comes to rsh jobs, she says, hisworkers go over and beyond expectationsand the reason for that can be boiled down toone word: respect. Dog is a fair person andhas that close-knit personality of being goodto his employees and the vendors he does

work for. Bo Dncan, tool shop spervisorat LMR Plastics Inc. in Greenville, Tenn.,which does a lot of work for John Deere,recalls a tool breaking on Friday afternoonand Salkewicz having someone at the shop at8 a.m. Saturday to x it. Doug takes care ofs whatever weve got to have. As JoeCond with BorgWarner Trbo Systems inArden pts it: Working with him, yo cantell hes a genine gy and follows throgh.He does what he says hes going to do. And

he goes above and beyond, to be honest.

he crrent recession is thethird that the companyhas weathered. We wentthrogh 92 with no troble

becase we were small,Salkewicz says. Dringand after the 2001 reces-

sion, we kept or heads above the water,bt jst barely. Thats largely becase of thecompanys scal conservatism. For instance,Salkewicz had paid off the 10-year loan on thebilding in eight years. He often pays cashfor new machinery or a vehicle. Bills are paidevery two weeks. I try not to get in debt, hesays. I dont like it.

From 2003 to 2008, he says, we were doinggood. We were making a good prot. But hewatched with dismay as one manfactrer ofplastic parts after another went ot of bsiness from 22 in 1987 to eight today. China camein and cleaned s ot. In 08, the whole econo-my changed. Atomotive tanked. Hosingtanked. It started to dip arond November,December of 08. By 09, we were in theoh-what-are-we-going-to-do-now mode.Some weeks, the shop got fewer than 25 jobs,down from 55 the year before. It was nerve-wracking, Salkewicz says, closing his eyesas he careflly conjres p the adjectives.unnerving. Frightening. I prayed like crazy:Please give me jst enogh work to keep thesepeople here. Becase I cant send them home.

Some of the jobs Advanced TechnicalWelding took in were neither advanced nortechnical. When times got hard, Chandlersays, it didnt matter to s whether it was abroken chair down the road. If it kept the dooropen, wed take it. We had everything from

bed rails to rie parts. To keep his people busy,Salkewicz fond them odd jobs arond theshop, even if it was only yard work. He gureshe could have made a prot if he had let twogo. But Salkewicz reected on what happenedto his brother-in-law, laid off after 22 years as apharmacetical salesman when his companymerged with a competitor. It was a corporatehatchet job, Salkewicz says. Losing hisapartment, his brother-in-law had to move inwith relatives. He was ot of work for abot a

year, and I saw the effects of that monetarily

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and psychologically. Ive seen other people losetheir jobs. Its jst devastating.

Pt in bsiness terms, there was anotherreason he coldnt let them go: He needed toprotect his investment. In effect, hes spend-ing at least $150,000 to train a microwelder.Yore looking at abot 3 years beforethey can take a part off a uPS trck and say,I can do it. And its probably more than thatbecase yore going to have mistakes thatare going to come back and bite yo bad.Still, he says, thats not his primary motiva-tion. Yore trashing their lives. Thats theprimary thing that stands ot in my mind, notthat yo have to replace them.

As bad trned to worse in 09, Salkewiczcalled everyone into the conference room andasked them to do everything they cold toct costs and make sre that work didnt comeback to be done over again. We all kind ofbckled down and said well all do what we

need to do to keep it going, Chandler recalls.The gys all talked abot it and decided notto ask for raises and drop retirement. Salke-wicz took them p on that. However, whenDecember came, he decided not to call off theannal Christmas party. Nor did he cancelyear-end bonses, which he handed ot in theconference room, one by one, to each employee.Everybody who came in here said, If yorenot in a position to do this, dont give it tome. Thats the kind of people I have. So now

my qestion is, Coldu send them home?

Does he blame himself for not anticipatingthe downtrn? I saw it coming. I was savingmy money, bt yo cant control a collapsinghosing market and an ato market that fallsapart. Im hinged to all these markets jstlike everyone else. He did realize that hehad focsed too tightly on a niche market,repairing damaged parts in injection molds.He began doing work that the shop had oncefarmed ot and went after other weldingjobs further aeld from manufacturers whowork in aviation and for the military despitereqiring a fair amont of paperwork.

Changing or website to focs ondifferent markets and focsing on differentsales strategies has started to show reslts,he says. Beginning in Janary, we were againprotable. Sales for the rst six months of

2010 are p 10%, and revene for the yearshould reach about $700,000. Hes givingraises again. The atomotive sector seemsto be picking p in the Greenville area. Someof the companies have gotten big contractsthat will take them into 2015. In October, hepicked p a new accont from a parts makerin Alamance Conty. I srvived becase Idid not overspend, he says. And becase hisemployees helped him srvive. I realizedearly on that if yo commit to yor employ-

ees, they in trn will commit to yo.

Salkewicz estimates it takes a major amount of time

more than three years to train a microwelder.

Documents

Advanced Technical Welding Cover Story - Business NC Magazine