Wallace Lee is president of Parasol Aviation, a small family-operated machine shop tucked away in Sunland. With fewer than 10 employees, Parasol produces aluminum and plastic hinges that are shipped around the world for use primarily in business jets. Customers include aviation heavyweights Gulfstream, Bombardier, BE Aerospace and Embraer. Small manufacturing businesses such as Parasol can be found throughout the greater San Fernando Valley region. Lee has been in business for himself since the mid-1960s — starting with Precision Engineered Products and followed by Parasol in 1984. He enjoys tinkering with the milling machines at his business, his collection of classic cars, the aircraft he hand-built and other objects. He arrives at work as early as 5 a.m. and stays until it’s time to quit. “I’ll never retire,” said Lee, 78. “I love this.” A native of Utah, he came to California with his family in the early 1940s. A decade later, he was working for aircraft manufacturer Radioplane Corp., which was later folded into Northrop Corp. He started out on his own in 1966 and has operated his business out of a two-story building in the east Valley since 1980. Q: Is it tough to be a manufacturer in California? A: For me, no. I don’t want another shop on the outside doing part of the work. I will do it all. It’s cheaper, for one, and you get the type of work you want. It works out better. Q: How has business been? A: Sales are good. My biggest customers aren’t in the United States. Brazil is one; Canada is another one. Germany is starting to come up very good, (and) so is England. I have a rep over there who does my selling. Q: Was your business affected by the recession? A: The people I go to (for business) are not in the recession, which your main airplane makers are. Your private executive planes are not, although I am sure it hit them a little bit. I have not felt it yet. Q: Is the Asian market an important one for you? A: It is, and I hope it stays that way. They do not honor our patents. They can come out with a product similar to mine, and there is nothing I can do. But they cannot sell them here. Q: Did you want to start your own business? A: Never really thought about it. I liked it because I got to design a lot of different products. You question people about their needs and they tell you, and you figure out a product around it. Years ago, I was teaching a class and everybody was asking how you come up with ideas. No matter what you come up with, there’s always something we can do to make it easier. Q: What have been some of your ideas? A: Prior to this I was making umbrellas for airplanes. It goes into the inlet of jet engines and keeps the bugs and birds and everything out of it. It takes about a minute to install them. The old covers they used — it took three men to actually cover an engine of an airplane. This is much easier. Q: Now you are making hinges. How did that idea come about? A: There was a need. There was an aircraft company, and they were buying what is called a Soss hinge. They are very loose. They didn’t like them, so I designed a hinge that they did like. Gulfstream wanted the hinges. I made up a group of hinges for them, and from there it exploded. Now I sell them all over the world. Q: What is different about these hinges? A: They will last a lot longer, and it does cost a little bit more. We also make them in plastic and they look exactly the same. We do make them up for boats, and that is the reason for the plastic. Aviation is the big seller. Q: How did you start making hinges for marine uses? A: We figured it was a good hinge, and they might want to use it in their cabinet work. It is mostly for your luxury-type items. People can use them for their home, but that would be costly. They can go get a Soss hinge for $7. With mine, you’d be looking at $40-$50. Q: How do you innovate? A: My mind works differently than most people. I discovered years ago that if I have a dream of something that someone can use, I’ll wake up, jot it on a piece of paper and the next morning when I wake up, I’ll develop it. I know it sounds odd. Most of my ideas are from dreams. Q: What is the main lesson you’ve learned from operating your own business? A: You have to be a listener. Q: You work with your wife and two sons at Parasol. Is it tough working with family members? A: Every one of us has our own field. Kevin is good at the paperwork, taxes, and everything else. Robert knows how to make tooling and making your product faster. It is working out here. Q: What do you look for in a machinist? A: I don’t want anybody with experience because then they start telling me (how things will be done). I know it sounds cruel, but if they’re going to work for me they will do the work the way that I want it. Q: Why is that important? A: I get a product the way I like it. Q: What qualities does a good machinist have? A: A little bit of knowledge about a machine — the old-fashioned way, the hand crankers. If they learn that — the basics of it — they will have no problems. Q: Would you recommend manufacturing as a career? A: When a person goes into machine work it can be tricky. He has to learn from the beginning. I have this one gentleman in his early 50s, and he is going to school. It is harder than he figured. When you crank out parts, it looks easy for the person who knows what he’s doing. Q: Do you talk to other manufacturers in the Valley? A: No, and I don’t know too much about what is going on except for what I hear. A lot of them are really hurting, and it’s a shame. As far as I know, the work in the Valley has come down quite a bit. Q: You have a collection of classic cars. Tell me about that. A: That has been my hobby for many years. I have this little pickup truck that I bought in 1954 for $11. Today it is the only one of its kind in the world. The little pie wagon downstairs is the same thing. They only built those in 1912 and 1913. Q: Do they all still run? A: They all run very well. Q: How many do you have? A: Last count was 17. I am not competing with anybody. Q: You have also built airplanes. How did that come about? A: I built the P-1 Hawk. It was a fighter. It was the fastest pursuit plane in the world. I got ahold of the original drawings and built them up. They found five of these engines in England, so we built five of them. I sold these to a gentleman who was restoring planes. That, again, was just a hobby.