Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 3, 1993 TAG: 9310060033
SECTION: INDUSTRY RECOGNITION PAGE: IR-14 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BY JOANNE ANDERSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
These firms are actually classified as small businesses in the great scheme of things, and are dubbed "America's secret economic weapon - nimble, entrepreneurial and innovative" by Larry Light, corporate finance editor of "Business Week" magazine.
Creating low-paying jobs often is attributed to small firms, but Cognetics, Inc., an economics research company, reported that companies with fewer than 100 workers added more relatively high-wage jobs (those within the upper third of the wage spectrum) than low-wage jobs (those in the lower third of the wage spectrum) from 1987 through 1992.\
ACCO STONE COMPANY, BLACKSBURG
With quarries in several counties, including Montgomery, Acco Stone and its 20 local employees are busy crushing rocks right down to sand, depending on the size of screen used with the crushers. Obviously, the measurements of the holes in the screen determine the size of the final stones.
Acco's parent company is Salem Stone in Salem, which has been in business more than three decades. The firm also removes boulders from job sites and sometimes leases land and pays a royalty for the rocks.
Because asphalt stone is their biggest volume product, president Leonard Hill would just love to hear that I-81 is being expanded to six lanes.\
AMES TEXTILE CORPORATION - SYNTHETIC YARN DIVISION, CHRISTIANSBURG
Synthetic yarn, not the knitting kind, is made of nylon and polyester and delivered to Ames Textile's Industrial Drive plant to be given an S or Z twist. Then it is wound on tubes or pirns and shipped to another manufacturer to be made into something else, like a clothing label, for example.
The company, headquartered in Lowell, Mass., since its founding more than a century ago, set up shop in Montgomery County late in 1989. "The location is closer to our suppliers and customers, and we found a 52,000 square foot shell building that fit our needs," said John Vessey, plant manager. Good shipping and transportation channels also contributed to the location decision.\
BIG SPRING MILL, INC. MONTGOMERY COUNTY
Founded in the 1870s, Big Spring Mill receives raw wheat from the midwest and ships out all-purpose flour, wheat midlings and wheat bran. President David Long, whose grandfather and father took over the mill in 1935, explains that the grain is rolled, mashed, sifted, ground, re-ground and re-ground until the final product is acceptable.
In 2- to 25-pound packages, the flour goes to national grocery chains and independent grocers. Wheat midlings are sold to feed manufacturers, and the wheat bran goes to a firm that grows mold for products that run the gamut from feed to medicines to cleansers.
Long, who is often "as busy as a one-armed paper hanger," said the plant runs 22 hours a day with 28 employees and two shifts between 5 a.m. one morning and 3 a.m. the next.\
CUPP TOOL CORPORATION BLACKSBURG
Don't look for company founder Jack Cupp to leave his business any time in the near future. "I'm only 73, so I won't be retiring too soon," he declared. "Oh, I work every day, but sometimes I play golf half the day."
Cupp started his custom tool shop in 1967 when he grew tired of working for someone else. The 18 employees manufacture custom tooled parts in quantities from one to 100,000. Customers include Poly-Scientific, AT&T, ITT and several in aerospace and fiber optics industries.
EASTERN REPAIR & FABRICATION, INC., CHRISTIANSBURG
Building, retrofitting, repairing and modifying very large, very heavy machine tools is the major business of 13-year old Eastern Repair & Fabrication. The company employs about 20 people and conducts most of its work, along with a machine job shop, in 37,000 square feet on Scattergood Drive.
Its customers along the eastern seaboard include major companies in power processing (like power plants), metal fabrication, ships and automotive industries. The company is justifiably proud of its ISO 9000 approval by one of its Fortune 500 company customers.\
MACO TOOL, INC., CHRISTIANSBURG
According to Fred Cecil, vice president, Maco Tool "can make just about anything out of steel, aluminum, brass and copper." The 13-year-old company performs precision machine tooling for big industry customers, serves as a limited production prototype contractor and designs and builds some of its own products, such as fixtures and dollies.
The original Maco Tool company is located in St. John's, Mich.\
MILLWORK SUPPLY, INC., BLACKSBURG
Millwork Supply, which will celebrate its 10th year in business next spring, has built its reputation on speed and service. There's "a heavy emphasis on quick service," stated president and founder Robert Purdue. "Average time from receipt of order to shipment of product is three days."
Pre-hung doors are the products. Millwork purchases door blanks, casings and jambs. Both interior and exterior doors are then machined and assembled to create a pre-hung unit. The company is a wholesale supplier whose customers may be found across state lines and up to 250 miles away.
"Sales are directly influenced by new construction," said Purdue. So the number of employees varies between 18 and 25.\
NEW RIVER VALLEY WORKSHOP, INC., MONTGOMERY COUNTY
One of 50 vocational rehabilitation facilities throughout the state, the Montgomery County workshop manufactures wood pallets for manufacturing industries in the area. "You'd be surprised at the variation in pallet sizes," stated Bob Huff, executive director. "It seems each
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