Metal shop tests owner's mettle
EAST BUTLER — Keeping a small business from going under or getting ahead of itself is part of the free market challenge.
Capital gets tight and trends change. Customers come and go and markets rise and fall. All the while, competitors watch and wait for any edge.
Rick Kennedy, owner of Ken-Fab & Weld, has weathered more than his share of storms in keeping his 17-year firm on solid footing.
A major relocation, economic downturns, bad deals, rising debt, labor worries and a near bankruptcy have made for many 25-hour days and sleepless nights.
But perseverance and sacrifice have paid off for the 63-year-old Kennedy. His steel fabricating shop and warehouse supply business has found its niche in an often testy marketplace.
"I invested a lot of my own money and made a bunch of business mistakes. But sometimes you have to keep beating your head against the wall until you get it right,"he said. "It wasn't until two or three years ago, I started making a profit — finally."
Not bad for a guy that started his firm with no formal business education or experience; just some good ol' common sense, a strong worth ethic and a whole lot of stubbornness.A dedicated workforce, top quality work at a reasonable cost and the business strategy to take on jobs that the competition will not or cannot do has been the secret of Ken-Fab &Weld's success."If a customer needs something and in a hurry," Kennedy said, "we'll drop everything and get it done. You've got to keep earning your customers every day."That's the type of philosophy that breeds a loyal customer base.Since its start up, the firm has been a fabricating shop that caters to small jobs for do-it-yourselfers, manufacturers and even farmers."We do a lot of walk-in trade,"Kennedy said. "Sometimes it's just making a patch for a mower deck. Sometimes it's a part for a manure spreader or some other type of farm machinery."Farmers,"he noted, "will squeeze out whatever they can, to keep a piece of equipment going. New equipment costs money."The bulk of Ken-Fab & Weld's businesses comes from a 50-mile radius of its headquarters on Valvoline Road.The fabrication shop does work for homebuilders — professional and novice alike."We do fabricating work for builders,"Kennedy said. "But we do a lot of projects for people just doing work around the house. It could be as small a project as someone needing a 1-inch piece of steel angle or something welded together."But larger customers are also an important source of business.Ken-Fab & Weld creates steel fabrications, for example, from sheet metal to 2-inch-thick pieces, for those businesses and others.
Kennedy's firm also services not-so-large companies, such as Centerline Boring Inc. of Harmony."We make parts for their drills,"he said. "It's a specialty we do. We also cut parts out for (Dennis) Filges (Co. Inc. of Oakland Township)."Among Kennedy's other smaller-sized customers are Biofab Products Inc. of Summit Township and city-based Butler Fabricating.Ken-Fab & Weld is equipped to roll, bend, shear, punch and weld — whatever its takes to satisfy its clientele.It boasts a high-tech machine that features computer numerical control — meaning it can cut steel, aluminum and stainless steel into precision shapes, angles and dimensions."You can program the machine, and it can cut all the parts on its own,"Kennedy said. "We use it mostly for our fabricating, but occasionally, we are able to put it to good use for a customer."Kennedy bought the machine from Mine Safety Appliance several years ago for $5,000, but since then, he's spent close to $40,000 to make improvements on it.Kennedy, the small business owner, got a late start in life. He first put in a decades-long career at Armco's Butler plant, working as a rigger and welder.But he always had the dream of being his own boss. To own his own business would mean, he thought, "I could make a difference."While still working at Armco, his first business venture, running a bar in Callery in the 1980s, didn't pan out."You're not dealing with real people,"he said of the bar business. "It's not a fun thing. You'd think it would be, but it wasn't."He tapped out as a bar owner after two years. Next, he tried selling real estate. But that was just as unrewarding."I finally decided to do something I knew about,"said Kennedy of founding his Ken-Fab & Weld. "But still, the business side was a real eye opener."He picked up every government publication on how to run a business that he could get his hands on. But it turned out that "trial by error"provided a better and more practical education.Kennedy, still an Armco employee, set up shop in the former Hutchinson fabricating building under the Main Street bridge."I rented it off a guy in town,"he said. "I bought a welder at the vo-tech and bought a cutting outfit from another guy."Humble beginnings, to say the least.The fledgling business, with Kennedy taking on debt, soon showed promise, and within two years, moved to the former Spang fabricating shop.
In 1995, Kennedy accepted the kind of inevitable risk for aspiring entrepreneurs. He expanded his business and took on more debt.He decided to launch a steel supply division in the same Spang building. The decision was rooted in the precept of supply and demand and Kennedy's own principle of meeting the customer's needs at all costs.Kennedy figured he could run his business more efficiently and grow it at the same time by being in control of the raw materials that his customers needed.Out of necessity and enterprise arose Butler Steel Supply, the supply side of Ken-Fab &Weld."I borrowed $30,000,"Kennedy remembered, " and bought the inventory for the steel warehousing spin-off."It was a gamble that eventually paid dividends.Butler Steel Supply, which sells aluminum, stainless steel, sheet, plate and structural steel to businesses and individuals for manufacturing uses, now accounts for 50 percent of Kennedy's business.Kennedy retired from Armco in 1996, ending 32 years on the job. He devoted his energy and attention to the business, which relocated to its current East Butler site in July 2001.But that same year growth slowed, suddenly and unexpectedly, so much that the business edged precariously close to the brink of bankruptcy.Kennedy and his loyal, hardworking employees hunkered down and plodded on."We tried to keep our existing customers satisfied and worked hard to get new customers,"he said. "We did whatever we could for companies and individuals. We tried not to turn anyone down for any job."That "customer first" mantra has been important to Ken-Fab &Weld's longevity. Equally if not more important has been its dedicated workforce, which has remained for years at about 7 or 8 full-timers and a couple part-timers.Turnover is rare, and most employees have been with Kennedy for more than 10 years.The boss had particularly high praise for foreman Dave Hayden and office manager Cindy Regis."They're great," Kennedy said. "Dave runs the shop part of it, and Cindy runs the business part."Self-described as "semi-retired" now, Kennedy also credits his wife for his business success."She supported me, mainly, even when I was going into debt," he said. "It wasn't easy. And I was always the lowest paid guy here. But we had enough so we didn't starve."Kennedy, meanwhile, likes the way his business is positioned for further financial stability in an often unstable market. And he's not about to change what's worked in good times and bad."We want to keep what we have going,"he said. "We want to keep all our customers happy and maybe pick up some new ones here and there."
