CEMM: Formula for Success (Online)
Steve Patterson: Maybe the most important thing we learned from Mr. Prescott was how important employees are to achieving success, and how to make them feel happy and at home. Personally, I believe we wouldn’t have done what we did without the cooperation of our employees.

Cranking Up Crankshafts (Online)
Irvine, CA’s Superior Crankshaft LP, founded in 2004 by Austrian entrepreneur Gerold Pankl, designs and manufactures crankshafts for the full gamut of high-performance racing vehicles, including Formula One, NASCAR, Le Mans Prototype (LMP), Moto GP (motorcycle) and amateur grassroots race cars.Irvine, CA’s Superior Crankshaft LP, founded in 2004 by Austrian entrepreneur Gerold Pankl, designs and manufactures crankshafts for the full gamut of high-performance racing vehicles, including Formula One, NASCAR, Le Mans Prototype (LMP), Moto GP (motorcycle) and amateur grassroots race cars.

Surgical Tool Prototype Shop (Online)
Founded by a doctor 12 years ago, San Diego, Ca’s NuVasive, Inc,. is a highly successful, rapidly growing NASDAQ-listed company specializing in.

June • July 2010

Going “Nuts” for Profit! (Online)
Like most small businesses, the life of Anaheim, CA’s 50-year-old Atlas Specialty Products, Inc. has been a wild roller coaster ride with lots of ups and downs, and at one point a total crash.

Another Bite (Online)
We’re all familiar with dentists checking our jaw by pressing on the joint just ahead of our ears and saying: “Open. Close.” As we open and close our mouths, our jaw pivots at the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), allowing us to chew, talk and even hold a soda straw in our teeth.

Building with Better Communication (Online)
A famous Irish literary critic and playwright once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Someone else once said, “What you think you said and what your customer thinks you said may be quite different.”

The Last Breath (Online)
Necessity is definitely the mother of invention, proven once again by the invention of a small life-saving air tank called Spare Air by its machinist-inventor Larry Williamson.
“Larry is my father,” says Christeen Buban, vp at Huntington Beach, CA’s Submersible Systems, Inc., the company founded by Williamson to produce his invention. “He was a machinist by trade, as was his father before him. He had a small shop in Huntington Beach, where he produced parts for the aerospace industry, and, like many machinists, he was always tinkering with one invention or another.”

Supercharging Blower Prototypes (Online)
Figure out what you love to do and make a career of it. That way you’ll never have to work for a living. That’s advice frequently given by guidance counselors to people who are unhappy in their work.

A Fitting Niche For Success (Online)
How’s this for a near-perfect business niche? You don’t have to go out selling, yet you get to pick and choose from among 100-150 RFQs a day. You have a few competitors, but it’s almost impossible for a someone new to break into your business and nudge you aside.

Making Music in Metal (Online)
Most contract manufacturers are generally satisfied to produce high-quality products on time to customer specifications and at a profit. At Goleta, CA’s 66-year-old Neal Feay Company, however, one additional major requirement has been added.

The Quest for Productivity

Making The World Go Round (Online)
Scientists believe the wheel was invented about 8,000 years ago in ancient Sumer (aka Sumeria).

Absorbing Business Shocks (Online)
Here’s the scenario. The year is 1990. Your brother is an off-road racing enthusiast. He invented better, tougher shock absorbers than the ones previously available for the sport.

Small But Effective (Online)
Alberto Barrientos, founder and sole owner of Torrance, CA’s Advanced Manufacturing Services, started his machine-shop working career in Guatemala nearly 40 years ago.

December 2009 • January 2010

You get what you pay for (Online)
The visit was more than successful, because the professor was very forthright in his assessment of what employers might expect from his students.

New Fabrication Technology (Online)
When Jim Morroni founded Electric Equipment & Engineering Co. (EEE), Denver, CO, in 1922, it was just a small firm selling motors and electrical systems.

A Sound Investment (Online)
Some people run into a problem and either don’t see it or totally ignore it. Others see a problem and com-plain, “I wish somebody would do something about that!” Then they move on.

QA One-Two Punch Wins (Online)
Not many businesses can increase sales 18% during one of the worst downturns in 30 years. But Todd Johnson, president and founder of Tempe, AZ’s Total Quality Systems, Inc., (TQS) started in 2000, has done just that. How?