A growth recipe
Charles Slat ctslat@monroenews.com
Published: April 11, 2010
While many companies were making plans to shrink in the face of recession over the last couple of years, Randy and Wendy Wright were mapping expansion plans for their business. The owners of Actuator Specialties Inc. in Monroe saw their plans become reality recently when they and two partners opened a diversified sister company, Midwest Valves & Automation, at 455 Detroit Ave.
The two firms go together like butter and toast, and are part of the Wrights’ recipe to build business while keeping it in Monroe and in the United States.
“We’re very much American-made,” Mrs. Wright says. “America’s not in great shape right now. Why go out of the country to get stuff?”
ASI, located in a 10,000-square-foot building at 1620 Rose St. in the Samuel J. Mignano Jr. Industrial Park, specializes in repairing and supplying parts for actuators — the motor-driven devices that commonly open and close huge valves in places ranging from power plants to steel mills to refineries and water treatment plants.
Now, Midwest Valves & Automation, an industrial valve repair firm, has renovated and settled in a 21,000-square-foot building at 455 Detroit Ave., about two blocks away.
Partnering with the Wrights in the new business are the Macomb Group, based in Sterling Heights, and Dayton Precision Services of Dayton, Ohio.
The companies promise rapid response to far-flung customers who might lose millions when a valve or actuator, or both, go on the fritz.
Jim Keaney of Dayton Precision Services said the big-valve repair business is among a handful of such specialty firms in existence in the U.S. His firm partnered with the Wrights because it would give his company two locations within the Midwest right off I-75. One of the talents Dayton brings to the partnership is the ability to do heat-treating in the field.
Macomb Group serves as the sales force for the firms. “We’ve never had a sales person before,” Mrs. Wright explained, adding that Randy was the one who sometimes would make sales calls. “This will keep Randy off the road more.”
In addition, Central Gear of Madison Heights has set up a machine shop in the Midwest building to provide on-site custom machining services.
Among the reasons ASI has grown and Midwest is getting off the ground is that utilities and other companies hoping to control costs are opting for repairs and rebuilds of actuators and valves rather than paying far higher prices for new parts.
Mrs. Wright said the business hasn’t slackened during the recession because big companies continue to tighten their belts and seek ways to cut costs.
ASI also has one of the biggest inventories of actuator parts around and Midwest is starting to build an inventory of valves.
While bringing business to Monroe, the company also has made an effort to buy locally. “We used all local companies,” Mrs. Wright said.
“We have used only local labor and vendors to renovate our building and build our valve shop,” she said. She said creation of the valve shop has injected almost $2 million into the local economy.
ASI’s beginnings date to 1997 when Mr. Wright, an Ida native with about two decades of industry experience, began reconditioning and repairing valves in the basement of his home. The company expanded to a warehouse in Ida and moved into its current location in 2005.
