Manufacturers Prove They’re Indispensable

Editor, Jason Schaff As you’ve obviously noticed, most of this issue of the Business Journal is on the Valley-area manufacturing industry. Why devote so much space to that? Because despite what even the average businessperson on the street will tell you, there’s still a heck of a lot of manufacturing that goes on in our area. The depth and breadth of it is certainly worth writing about. I often get asked if there really is still much manufacturing to speak of in our region. Most people have the impression that all the factories that originally were here have gone overseas or at least to some other state. Not so – at all. There are lots of really good manufacturers here, large and small. They are manufacturers which provide such important products that whole industries such as aviation could not function without them. Taking a look at the companies that we have written about in this issue, I have drawn some conclusions about our Valley-area manufacturing industry. • It does some stunningly important things. In the aviation industry, you can’t beat the companies in our area when you talk about the breadth of private, commercial and military uses for the things our firms make for aircraft. Among these companies are the biggies such as Northrop Grumman, the medium-size guys such as Crane Aerospace and the smaller guys such as Frazier Aviation. You literally can’t find a plane around that doesn’t have some of their parts. These guys are literally defending our country and keeping the world flying with their products. Some of these companies have a pretty big lock on their market share, too. • We have a very diverse group of manufacturers. Yes, there are a lot of aerospace companies but there are other firms making important things in other industries. For example, IRIS International develops urinalysis and other sample processing products for the medical market. That’s pretty important. We’ve also got the personal care companies such as Star Nail and Sexy Hair Concepts. And don’t forget the adult novelty manufacturers such as Pipedream Products. It’s not our Porn Valley without that. • Our manufacturers are forward looking. There’s SolarWorld, which has been in solar energy since the 1970s, long before it was so popular. Now they’re really coming into their own with some big contracts. And of course there’s Spectrolab, which has its products in everything from satellites to weapons. Even very traditional companies such as KenWalt Die Casting are forward thinking. That company has installed solar panels to help power its operations. Companies such as KenWalt may do something traditional but they don’t have to be traditional in their thinking of how they run their businesses. Despite there still being a good manufacturing base here in our region, the industry has taken a hit in the past several years. A recent report by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. on manufacturing, although saying that the area is still No. 1 for manufacturing in the country, said that we lost nearly 16% of our industry employment from 2006-2009. Things are stabilizing now and are expected to remain that way in the next few years, but manufacturing does remain at risk, not only from economic and competitive forces but from an aging workforce and the need for a consistently educated work force. Oh, also from the high cost of doing business here. Business Journal Editor Jason Schaff can be reached at (818) 316-3125 or at [email protected].