Believe it or not, the tumultuous up and down of the U.S. economy over the last few years has been a calming time for Protech Metal Finishing CEO Mike Huddleston.
Compared to what happened to him and the company in the previous five years, the pandemic and the ensuing economic roller coaster has been fairly smooth sailing.
“Every day has its pressure,” says Huddleston, who owns the Nadcap-certified Protech along with his wife, Nancy, in a 32,000 square foot facility on 10 acres in Vonore, Tennessee. “But the last few years have been manageable compared to before.”
Offering All Types Of Anodizing, Conversion Coatings
Specializing in anodizing and rack plating, Protech services a large customer base in the aerospace, defense, industrial, medical and automotive fields. They offer all types of anodizing, conversion coating aluminum and titanium, nitric and citric passivation, rack plating zinc, phosphate (zinc, manganese), and paint coatings.
They most recently added titanium conversion coating and a passivation process for copper, which they use to service the electrical power industry. Protech also has customer approvals for Sikorsky, Lockheed, General Electric, General Dynamics, BAE, Toyota, Ford, General Motors, and Kubota among others.
In 2017, the Protech facility burned to the ground after an oven motor overheated, leaving the company at a pivotal point in deciding whether to get loans to augment the insurance and rebuild or just call it a day.
The Huddlestons had purchased the facility from the original owners in 2008, just in time for the great recession. Prior to that, they owned a metal fabrication business that used Protech as a CARC paint vendor.
“That was our introduction to the metal finishing industry,” says Mike, who decided to rebuild the facility and sent work from his current customers to other area finishes in hopes that it would someday come back.
Rebuilding and Expanding
A fire completed destroyed the shop in 2017.Although the fire completely destroyed its facilities, Protech and its employees banded together in 2018 to assemble a makeshift plating operation and prepare for a Nadcap certification process, which Protech then passed.
“This is a major accomplishment for the employees at Protech,” says David Hunt, the shop’s engineering and quality manager.
In 2019, Protech completed the rebuild and expansion of its new facility to give them 32,000 square feet of production space and an increased number of production lines. There is a 10,000 square foot building for expansion.
“The new facility has also allowed us to have increasingly fast turn times,” says Shawn Dubey, Protech business development manager.
"The quality of our work has always been top-notch, but it's our Nadcap accreditation and quick turn times that take us to the next level for our customers," Dubey says. "Other shops may try to lure customers by offering lower pricing, but without the speed and ability to work on Nadcap-required projects, they're limited.”
Three Anodizing Lines
Previously, Dubey says Protech had one anodizing line and one plating line. They now have three anodizing lines, and three plating and passivation lines.
“This facility offers the space, capacity, and enhancements we need to continue providing the best results to our customers for years to come.”
The fire also came on the heal of disgruntled former employees of Protech trying to cause harm to the business in 2013 by calling in false charges with the EPA that resulted in a three-year investigation by the U.S. EPA,
Federal Harassment
To say Protech and Huddleston were harassed by the regulators may be an understatement. In 2015 Protech was visited 40 times by local, state, and federal regulators, who sometimes brought more than a dozen people to look at the company’s records, go through the facility and interrogate employees.
“I was so naïve that I didn’t see all that was about to hit me in the face,” Huddleston says. “I thought I could just show them none of it was true, but it never ended. They kept coming back and coming back and never found anything, and yet every few days or weeks, they would come back and go through everything again. I had to hire lawyers to deal with all of this.”
At the end of this long process Protech was not charged with any violations.
“We are a much stronger shop and very environmentally sound,” Huddleston says. “The old saying is true: what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”
With the recession, the fire, and the federal investigation all behind them — and with fairly new facilities to bring in new customers — Huddleston says Protech has a great path forward to grow the business
Experienced Management Team
Protech currently has 28 employees who work one and a half shifts at present.
“It’s a moving target as we try to hire and retain good help,” Huddleston says. “Also very important is the average employment here for our managers and supervisors is about 10 years. That plays a crucial role in being able to problem solve and help our customers through their finishing challenges.”
Pat Murphy and Plating Specialists, Inc. are one of the main chemical suppliers to Protech, as well as SIC Technologies in Atlanta and Chemeon Surface Technology, which supplies its TCP-HF suite of chemistries that is environmentally safe and a superior trivalent chromate alternative to hexavalent chromates.
Because Protech performs a lot of defense and aerospace work, the Chemeon TCP-HF has become an important go-to with their operations. The U.S. Department of Defense and the United States Navy initially developed and tested the TCP-HF product for use in extreme applications.
Surpassing over 15,000 test panels, Chemeon’s TCP-HF (hex free) outperforms existing trivalent and hexavalent alternatives in wear and corrosion resistance and without requiring additional topcoats, says Ted Ventresca, Chemeon’s President, and CEO.
“TCP-HF can be applied in bulk and barrel applications, without damaging the coating integrity,” Ventresca says. “It is versatile enough to be applied over a wide range of materials, including zinc and alloy plating, raw zinc die-cast, and aluminum. As an anodize seal, it is an economical alternative to chromic acid, nickel acetate, nickel fluoride, and hot water seals.”
Enjoying the Challenge of Problem Solving
Huddleston says taking care of existing customers seems to be the best way to attract referrals and to grow with existing customers. They also enjoy the challenge of problem-solving issues for current and prospective customers.
“One time, we had top plating experts from Boeing, General Dynamics, and the Air Force in our shop working with our managers trying to figure out the plating issues on a critical part they wanted us to run,” Huddleston says. “Working together over several months, we engineered a solution that was accepted by all the parties involved. That was a great experience.”
