Something from nothing

An entrepreneur essentially creates something from nothing. Where there used to be nothing, or an empty building, a job shop now stands. When services flow from a new business, they never have been delivered before.

And ask any entrepreneur and he or she will tell you that getting from concept to reality isn’t easy. It almost always requires a hellish amount of work, risks and disappointments. My wife started her own company 7 years ago and I know the long hours she works. But those who persevere can reap the rewards and create something they can truly call their own.

In this issue, we have several different stories about entrepreneurs. I enjoyed visiting DC Machine LLC in Summerville, S.C., and writing about the shop (see "Steady aim"). It was pretty obvious from the moment I met Brian Plaisance, founder and co-owner of the shop, that he had a drive to succeed.

In the shop’s early days, Plaisance said he would sometimes be up 3 days straight, working a full day at a local manufacturer and most of the night at his small, one-man shop. The days are less full now, but he still puts in a lot of hours. The shop employs 45 people and is completely sold out for the next year or so—that’s a feat to be proud of.

In another entrepreneurial story, Kevin Burkett, a musician, was so intrigued with making aluminum guitars that he knocked on the doors of machine shops in Pensacola, Fla., until he found someone who would tell him how machining works. Today, his Electrical Guitar Co., also in Pensacola, machines aluminum guitars used widely in the music industry (see "Musical machinist gets sweet sounds from CNCs").

Our third pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps article features the inventor of a machine that processes, well, straps. Michael Rudnicki of machine shop Rudnicki Industrial Inc. in Thunder Bay, Ontario, invented the Strap Eater after a friend told him about problems disposing of hard-to-handle—but recyclable— steel strapping. Today, Rudnicki sells improved versions of his original machine as a sideline to his machine shop business (see "Machine takes a bite out of strapping").

I would venture to guess that metalworking has a higher percentage of entrepreneurs than most industries. If you can buy a machine tool or two, and know or learn how to operate them, you’re in business—provided that you have a vision and the desire to realize it. There are, I’m sure, thousands of entrepreneurial stories like the ones we cover in this issue.

It’s great when entrepreneurs succeed, in part because they create opportunities for other people to succeed as well.

Plaisance said: “When I was a kid and I said to my father that I couldn’t do something, he always told me, ‘Son, you do what it takes to get it done.’ I get my work ethic from my father, and that’s why this place is here.”

One reward of working hard is, sometimes, a business that keeps on growing. Next year Plaisance plans to add space to DC Machine and create what he calls “a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility,” funded mainly through sales revenue.

And one of the greatest benefits of being an entrepreneur is the ability to run a business the way you want to. As Plaisance said, “We pride ourselves in paying our bills on time and we expect to be paid on time. We work honestly, in a Christian atmosphere and attitude. We run our business accordingly, and that makes a difference. No one can speak badly about us. Not one would say we’ve done them wrong in the past.”

Those long hours really do have rewards after all. CTE