Two years ago, Metal Finishing Technologies in Bristol, Connecticut, threw its annual Christmas party luncheon for employees and retirees, and a blast from the past reappeared.
Peter MirabelloThe previous owner’s wife — who had not been to the facility in years — came to the lunch and remarked about how proud she was that the company seemed so family-oriented so long after her husband had owned the business for over 30 years.
“We had a great day talking about the history of the company and how pleased she was to learn the business started by her husband is now owned and operated by people that truly cared about the business and its future,” says Peter Mirabello, MFT Owner, as well as President and CEO. “It showed us all that MFT is not just a business but a family that is a part of many people’s lives.”
New Investment Spur Additional Lines
MFT recently installed a new passivate line.Things haven’t changed a bit even though a few months later, in mid-2020, announced an investment partnership with Battle Investment Group, a private investment firm focused on defense/government, aerospace, industrial, and telecommunications marketplaces.
Battle owns 60% of the company, and Mirabello Holdings has the remaining 40%, and the union has made MFT a very strong and viable finishing and coating solution for high-precision metal components utilized in aerospace engines and industrial equipment, as well as serving third-party maintenance, repair, and overhaul centers.
The new investment has meant MFT has purchased new equipment and lines, as well as expanding its operational personnel. They just added a new automatic passivation line that allows them to process six times the amount of passivate per hour over the prior manual system.
“We’ve added a brand new sulfamate nickel plating line for aerospace customers and a new aerospace cadmium plating line,” says Skip Griffin, Vice President of Operations.
Three years prior, MFT upgraded its electroless nickel line from two 300-gallon tanks to three 400-gallon tanks and one 600-high phos tank.
“We can handle large bulk work as well as large difficult to plate parts,” Griffin says. “We can process steel and stainless steel, aluminum, copper, and copper alloys.”
Specializing in MRO and Aerospace, Defense
Part of MFT’s Executive Team and Board include, from left to right, Lisa Attle, Vice President of Finance; Major General (retired) Lee Levy, Board member and advisor; Denise Smith, Human Resources Director; and Skip Griffin, Vice President of Operations.MFT specializes in maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) in the aerospace and defense, medical, automotive, and commercial industries. On the MRO side, their main operations are cleaning, coating, and braze removal, wet and dry grit blasting, aluminum oxide and plastic media blasting, sulfamate nickel, cadmium, and passivate.
For commercial plating, MFT offers electroless nickel, zinc-nickel, cadmium, passivate, and zinc plating. Mirabello says they are looking into adding non-destructive testing, hard chrome, hard anodize, bond coat, and advanced digital inspection.
“We have 55 employees, and we run about 15 hours per day with some lines on swing shifts to cover the volume of work,” Griffin says. “Once the Covid hangover eases up, we expect to run at least two full shifts.”
Aside from equipment and processes, MFT is also expanding its management staff with a commercial salesman, a business development manager, and a manufacturer’s rep.
“In the past, we never really advertised,” Mirabello says. “Historically, we had a good sticky book of business that we thoroughly serviced year after year. Now, we are in the position of smartly expanding our client base. At the same time, we are leveraging new technologies and driving SEO/SEM to increase our digital presence across certain market segments.”
Quality, Turnaround Times are Key to MFT
MFT celebrated its veterans recently, including from left to right, Roger Adams, Truck Driver; Tony Mann, Line Operator; Aaron Clayton, Shipping and Receiving Manager; and Humberto Cruz, Line Operator.Griffin says quality and turnaround times are the key to MFT maintaining its current list of clients, as well as the major reason they are attracting new ones.
“We feel without those two being first and foremost, nothing else matters,” he says.
Distributor Gilbert and Jones have been a part of the MFT fabric for more than 40 years, Mirabello says, and through G&J, they use chemicals from Coventya, MacDermid, and Luster-On.
“George Gilbert and his company have been an integral part of MFT’s success,” he says.
In 2020, the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program (Nadcap) officially accredited the company’s nickel sulfamate plating processes, which gave MFT a bigger push into the aerospace sector
“Our team works closely with customers’ designers and engineers to ensure that we implement the perfect finish for each application,” Griffin says. “And in the aerospace and defense industries, our customers are constantly looking for superior performance from their suppliers. This Nadcap accreditation shows that we are committed to continuous improvement and that our nickel sulfamate plating processes meet our customers’ exacting plating requirements.”
Griffin says that because MFT’s plating process is both high speed and high quality, the result is a cost-effective coating solution for their customers.
“Nickel sulfamate plating provides certain unique qualities,” Griffin says. “The plate itself is 99.9% pure nickel, producing unparalleled machinability, ductility, tensile strength, and solderability.”
EH&S is Key Cornerstone to Operations
Newly renovated offices included a new conference room.MFT operates out of an environmentally compliant 72,000 square foot facility with robust quality control processes and systems across all service offerings. Mirabello says they take Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) very seriously and make it a key cornerstone to their business.
“This gives our customers peace of mind that we will remain a strong and viable vendor to them,” Mirabello says. “EH&S is a fundamental cornerstone to our business, something we work at every day to ensure the safety of our employees, the neighborhood, and the environment inside and outside our shop. It's an imperative and non-negotiable tenet of MFT.”
With the new investment and new direction, both Mirabello and Griffin — along with Vice President of Finance Lisa Attle — believe MFT is heading in the right direction for growth and prosperity.
“In business, you’re either growing, or you’re dying, and we are growing,” Griffin says. “The future is now. MFT is investing in people and processing to support the aerospace and defense industry for the next 20 years and beyond. We have the platform in place, permits, and certifications. With all of that as our base, we will continue to invest in our business to support our customers and our employees.”
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